The earthquake that struck on the afternoon of January 15, 1934 was one of the worst in India's history. Some 30,000 people were said to have died. The epicenter was on the border between Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar. An area of 120,000 square miles was affected; much of Kathmandu and parts of Darjeeling were damaged. These scenes show the Bihar capital Patna's roofless houses, the wreckage of a cigarette factory and the General Hospital. Two district capitals in the state, Monghyr and Muzaffarpur, were completely destroyed with nearly 2,000 fatalities each. Observers compared this earthquake to the 1897 Assam and 1905 Punjab quakes. This is the complete Universal Newsreel of January 1934. The original soundtrack has been lost. Soundtracks were stored separately and usually have fared worse than film.
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