lonitions of the Yugoslav Earthquake!
How can you explain these strange incidents in which survivors sensed
the impending disaster before it struck? By PEER J. OPPENHEIMER
"TT T henever there's a disaster,
VV there are premonitions!"
That's the opinion of Dr. Zarco Hantchef, chief
medical officer for the International Red Cross,
who was sent to Skoplje, Yugoslavia, the day
after an earthquake destroyed that capital of
Macedonia and killed almost 2,000 persons on
July 26.
I interviewed Dr. Hantchef in Geneva, Swit
zerland, shortly after he returned from the dis
aster scene. A medical doctor, former university
lecturer, and Red Cross executive since 1949, he
told me of three widely diversified incidents to
prove his point.
"While the most intricate seismographs gave
no indication whatsoever of the coming earth
quake," Dr. Hantchef said, "the wild animals in
the zoo were the first to sense approaching trag
edy. Shortly before midnight they became ter
ribly excited. The lions started to roar, elephants
trumpet, jackals squeal. One water buffalo
swayed crazily from side to side as if he were
going mad. This had never happened before, and
the keepers were mystified."
But the animals weren't the only ones to sense
the danger.
"There was a 17-year-old girl whose bedroom
was on the second floor of a three-story apart
ment house," Dr. Hantchef told me. "Shortly aft
er midnight she rushed into her mother's bed
room on the street floor and complained she
couldn't sleep, that something terrible was about
to happen. She said she would feel safe only if
she could stay with her mother.
"The older woman wasn't about to put up with
such nonsense and ordered the girl back to
her own room. Mind you," Dr. Hantchef pointed
out, "European children are brought up to obey,
yet the girl refused to do as she was told. Final
ly, the mother had no choice but to let the girl
stay with her.
"Five hours later the first rumble shattered
the house. The building collapsed, and every hu
man being in it died except the mother and
daughter. Their room alone escaped destruction."
P bob ABLY the most amazing account of premo
nition that Dr. Hantchef related to me involved
a Belgian wife who woke up in her room at the
Macedonia Hotel four hours before the quake,
got dressed, and left the building. She walked up
and down the street for a while, feeling some
thing was terribly wrong. Suddenly she rushed
back to her room on the second floor and excited
ly shook her husband awake. She begged him to
get dressed and leave the hotel because there
was going to be a quake. He told her she was
silly and to get some sleep.
She tried, but half an hour later got up and
again walked out of the building. 'When she re
turned, she again awakened her husband and
pleaded with him to get dressed.
The scene repeated itself once more, but this
time he offered a compromise: since they'd
planned to leave the hotel about 8 o'clock the
next morning, he agreed to set the alarm for 6.
At 5:10 the wife got up for the fourth time.
She went into the bathroom, but no sooner had
she entered when something made her race back
to the bedroom and shake her husband awake.
"Let's get out of here," she screamed.
He sat up in bed and upon his wife's insistent
prodding reached for his clothes just as the
quake struck! Seconds later the hotel crumbled
into a pile of debris. Out of 180 persons who were
staying there, only 56 survived.
"Had the woman remained in the bathroom,"
Dr. Hantchef recalled, "she would have been
crushed to death. Had she followed her original
intuition, she and her husband could have avoided
the ordeal of being buried under the debris for
almost 60 hours before being rescued."
What caused these premonitions T As a Red
Cross official, Dr. Hantchef has visited the scenes
of many disasters. And it is always the same:
some of the survivors, animal and human, had
sensed beforehand the approach of sudden death.
Yet nobody has ever learned the source of their
frightening glimpse into the future.
It. V I . ' V. ...--v;1
if. it.
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Dr. HanUkef (left) and a Red Crou colleague etand amid Skoplje rubble. Muted railroad station clock (right) record the moment of dieatter a S:li a. tn.
COVER:
Richard Fox, IS, who delivert the New
Haven (Conn.) Register-Courier, hat an
ardent helper titter Mary Lou, 8. They
were caught by Oacie Sweet to salute Na
tional Newspaperboy Day next Saturday.
Family
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