was driving the sledge, which spread his weight evenly over the ice, and Mertz was skiing. But Ninnis was on foot and his weight breached the surface. He plunged into a snow-covered crevasse, taking the tent, most of their rations, and the six best dogs with him. Mertz and Mawson could see one dead and one injured dog on a ledge 50 m (160 ft) down the massive crevasse, but Ninnis was gone.
A long way from home
Mawson and Mertz said a brief service for their colleague and then turned back. They had a primus stove and fuel but only one week’s provisions and no food for the dogs. They were separated from home by 480 km (300 miles) of the most brutal terrain on earth.
Their first goal was to get to a spare tent cover that they had stashed behind them on their journey. To reach this they sledged continuously for twenty-seven hours. They rigged up a frame for this outer shell of canvas from skis and a theodolite.
Douglas Mawson peering over the edge of the crevasse into which his comrade Lt. Ninnis has fallen along with his sledge, dogs and supplies.
Mawson’s teams had explored large areas of the Antarctic coast and discovered much about its geology, biology and meteorology. They had also accurately determined the location of the South Magnetic Pole.
The trek back was slow going and they soon ran out of food. They had no choice but to kill their huskies one by one and eat them. There was hardly any meat on the animals, and even though they mixed it with a little of their tinned food, the men were almost constantly hungry. The bones, guts and sinew that they could not digest they gave to the remaining dogs.
Poisoned
Mawson and Mertz were so desperately hungry that they ate the huskies’ livers. Unfortunately, these contain a toxic concentration of Vitamin A. Although Vitamin A was only identified in 1917, Inuit peoples had long known about the poisonous nature of these organs. The livers of polar bears, seals and walrus are similarly dangerous.
The two men got very ill very quickly on their journey back. They were racked with sickness, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, dizziness and became irrational. Their skin turned yellow and began to peel from their muscles. Their hair and nails fell out.
Mertz ate more liver than Mawson because he found the dog’s tough muscles too hard to eat and he suffered the worst. As well as the physical deterioration, he became gripped with madness. He would lie curled up in his sleeping bag refusing to move, or would rage violently. At one point Mawson had to sit on Mertz’s chest and seize his arms to stop him wrecking their tent. He even bit off the tip of his own frostbitten little finger. After several major seizures, Mertz finally fell into a coma and died on 8 January 1913.
Walking home alone
That left Douglas Mawson to trek the last 160 km (100 miles) alone. At one point he tumbled into a deep crevasse. He was only saved from plummeting to certain death by his sledge, which jammed itself into the ice above him. He then hauled himself back up the slender rope that attached him to the sledge.
In 1916, the American Geographical Society awarded Mawson the David Livingstone Centenary Medal. He was later awarded the OBE and was also knighted.
Mawson finally made it back to Cape Denison in February, but further misfortune awaited him. The Aurora had sailed away just a few hours before. Mawson and the six men who had stayed behind to look for him were forced to spend a second winter in the brutal arms of Cape Denison until they were finally rescued in December 1913.
The Day the World Shook
| THE OCEAN LINER EMPRESS OF AUSTRALIA WAS LEAVING YOKOHAMA HARBOUR WHEN ONE OF THE MOST DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKES IN HISTORY LEVELLED TŌKYŌ AND THE SURROUNDING AREA. MORE THAN 100,000 PEOPLE DIED IN THE SHOCKS AND THE FIRESTORMS THAT FOLLOWED, BUT THE SHIP’S CREW STAYED TO HELP THOUSANDS MORE SURVIVE THE DISASTER. |
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| DATE: 1923 SITUATION: EARTHQUAKE CONDITION OF CONFINEMENT: ON BOARD AN OCEAN LINER IN A BURNING PORT DURATION OF CONFINEMENT: 12 DAYS MEANS OF ESCAPE: CAPTAIN’S PROFESSIONALISM, INDIVIDUAL COURAGE NO. OF ESCAPEES: 2,000 PLUS MANY OTHER REFUGEES DANGERS: TREMORS, FIRE, DROWNING EQUIPMENT: SHIP’S EQUIPMENT |
A world turned upside down
The scene could have been taken from a romantic movie: a beautiful ocean liner snug against a wharf, cheering passengers lining her rails, streamers and confetti falling like coloured rain on the hundreds of well-wishers on the dockside.
Seconds later the movie would become a tragedy as one of the most devastating earthquakes in history shattered the scene.
Thousands would die in the initial shocks and the catastrophic fires that followed. But thanks to the cool leadership of the liner’s captain and the selfless actions of her crew and passengers, many thousands more would survive.
Disaster on an unprecedented scale
It was 11.55 a.m. on Saturday, 1 September 1923 and the Empress of Australia was making ready to depart from her berth at Yokohama, Japan.
Then, without warning, the entire dock moved several feet up in the air. Suddenly it plunged back down again, cracking into pieces. Seized by panic, the people screamed and ran, but there was nowhere to go. The dock fell into dust beneath their feet.
More shocks hit, making the land around the bay roll in waves over 2 m (7 ft) high, as if it were the ocean.
‘The 23,000-ton liner was tossed from side to side like a toy boat in a bath.’
The sky was lit a sickly orange from the fires now raging across the city, and a low, near-continuous rumbling sound filled the air as hundreds of buildings collapsed into rubble.
The Empress had been hit by the Great Kantō earthquake. This measured 8.3 on the Richter scale and had its epicentre beneath Ō-shima Island in Sagami Bay, just 80 km (50 miles) from where the ship was moored.
The earthquake devastated Tōkyō, the port city of Yokohama and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka. Between 100,000 – 142,000 people perished, either from the initial tremors, subsequent building collapses or the vicious firestorms whipped up by 110 km/h (70 mph) winds from a nearby typhoon, which struck the area soon after the earthquake. Many people died when their feet got stuck in melting tarmac. In one single incident, 38,000 people who had taken refuge in a yard at a clothing depot were incinerated by a fire whirl.
Peril in port
Individuals were facing disaster at every turn. Captain Robinson of the Empress of Australia had the lives of more than a thousand people