Tremors In New Hebrides

Vila, Dec. 15,

APART from incidental and domestic mishaps, there have been, to date of 'writing, no reports of any substantial damage as a result of December’s spate of earth tremors in the New Hebrides.

In a news broadcast, Radio Australia reported that there had been recorded 22 earth tremors in the New Hebrides during the 24 hours between Sunday and Mon day, December 3 and 4.

The severest tremor, and the first of the series, occurred at approximately 7 a.m., on December 3. It was felt even on ships at anchor in Mele Bay. Minor tidal waves, precipitated by the tremor, at first threatened the village of Erakor, on Erakor Island, a quarter mile off the mainland of Efate and several miles from Vila.

Successive days brought subsequent shakes, downpours of rain and sudden violent thunder-storms.

Miss D. Rowlands, headmistress of the Queen Salote College for girls, in Tonga, arrived in Sydney by BCPA airliner on December 6.

It is noted in a recent issue of the Papua-New Guinea Gazette that, on application by Mr. A. T. Ireland, Mr. A.

C. Eldred has been appointed to hold the licence of the Wau hotel and will repre sent Mr. Ireland as manager.

The Rev. Satya Joseph, with his wife and 15-years old son, left Australia in December for a year’s leave in India after spending almost four years as an LMS missionary in Papua. Mr. Joseph comes from an Indian family which has been associated with Christianity for 100 years, but he is the first Indian to minister to another race. He was ordained in 1930

and for 15 years worked among the out casts and poor in Madras Province. Since early 1947 he and his wife have been stationed at Gavuone, 100 miles east of Port Moresby. They are enthusiastic about the work and hope to return there. The Papuans, Mr. Joseph says, are quick to grasp the Christian doctrine —which can not be said of his own people in India.