April 14

For many a week Japanese, harassed by a succession of Government crises and staggering under the biggest military budget in their history, had looked forward to April 14. That day, Japan's leading soothsayers had declared, would be the luckiest in Japan's year. The nation's bamboo-stick-shufflers, temple oracles and stargazers all agreed on this point.

The happy day dawned. Through the town of Matsue in Shimone prefecture swept a raging fire which burnt to ashes more than 400 houses, a hospital, a school, many business offices, deprived 1,500 of their homes. Korea, Japan's mainland dependency, was lashed by a storm which toppled 62 houses in the Keishonando district, lost eleven fishing boats near Fusan, bearing 70 fishermen. At Shingishu, Korea, 200 houses were washed away by floods. At Nagano, 20 persons were blown to bits by a fireworks explosion. Many mountain villages were wiped out by forest-fires between Kobe and Shimonoseki on the Empire's main island. A cyclone howled through the town of Fukui, unroofed houses, wrecked communications. At Nagoya, a despondent Japanese supplemented the work of the elements by throwing himself under a freight train. He was killed, the locomotive and 16 cars were wrecked, traffic from Tokyo to Shimonoseki stood still.

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