The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-04-24 00:00:00

BURNING OF A TOWN IN GALICTA.

in Saturday afternoon a fire broke out in the town
Stry, in Galicia. Violent winds caused the flames
spread so rapidly that a large number of houses,
the railway station, the military storehouses, the Town
Etall, and the Ring-square were burned down simul-
taneously. The town numbers about 10.000 inhabi-
tants, the majority of whom are homeless and without
food. The telegraph office being burned to the ground,
a military field telegraph was established. Express
trains with the fire brigades were sent from
Lemberg ; but almost the entire town of Stry was re-
(laced to a henp of ashes, from which the dead are
extracted by hundreds. The scene of the disaster is
described as quite appalling, the fire raging in several
districts at once. Many who escaped from their
blouses met with their deaths where they supposed
themselve, in safety. The wind carried the flames
far and wide, and set fire to places that had at first
been spared. The old part of the town was destroyed
first, but the new part, which was well built, was not
spared. The long a'reet from the old town to the rail-
way terminus was an endless line of thick smoke and
surging flames. When the terror seemed to have
reaehed its highest point a church steeple fell and
killed, it is said, more than a hundred persons who
had sought refuge from the insufferable heat in the
narrcw street. Almost every family misses some
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The Times correspondent, writing from 'Vienna on
April 19th, says :—As no newspapers are published
in Vienna between Sunday morning and '2 p.m. on
Monday, the few persons who heard yesterday of the
calamitous fire at Stry were indebted for their infor-
mation to short private or official telegrams. The
siccounts sent to' day from Lemberg and from ifilcze,
the station nearest to Stry, confirm the details
telegraphed yesterday, and describe some scenes of
almost unimaginable horror. The fire broke out at
2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, in the shop of a lock-
smith living in a small and crooked street, the
Kasimirgasse, near the Ruthenian church. It
seems that there were but a couple of
fire engines in the town, and these of an
old-fashioned kind. There was also but one
fireman on duty at the station. Before this
man could summon his comrades half an hour had
elapsed, and by that time a violent east wind had
caused the whole street to catch fire. From the first
the fury of the wind, which in the course of the after-
noon rose into a gale, allowed no chance of extinguish-
ing the flames. Assistance was telegraphed for to
Lemberg; but this town is 65 kilometres distant.
Soon the telegraph wires snapped, and the telegraph
station was itself burnt. Within one hour from the
breaking out of the fire one whole quarter of the
town was in a blaze. The soldiers of the Landwehr
battalion in garrison came to the help of the fire-
men, but had to fall back before the torrents of
flame and smoke. All ideas of isolating the fire
by blowing up houses had to be abandoned by
reason of the drift of sparks and burning embers,
which carried the conflagration with appalling
rapidity
,to the western side of the town. The
wooden cornices of the houses afforded inflammable
material, many houses caught fire from the roofs, and
by 4 o'clock the eastern and western suburbs were
slight together, while the centre of the town was still
intact. As soon as the population was roused to a
full sense of its danger a fearful panic was witnessed.
People began to rush from their houses, carrying
their valuables. Some tried to pack their goods on
sarts and barrows; others frantically implored assis-
tance to transport invalids. Miserable to relate, a
sang of depraved wretches hurried about at this
juncture to plunder. At the moment when all ought
to have been united in the common work of deliver-
Inca, desperate scuffles took place between persons en-
leavouring to save their property and rascals seeking
to rob them, and in many of these fights revolvers
were used and lives were lost. These revolting scenes
were renewed during the night, when the entire popu-
lation, driven from the burning town, took refuge in
the neighbouring plains. Some peasants from ad-
joining villages went about marauding. The con-
fusion and utter helplessness of the affrighted people,
snd especially of the ladies searching for shelter,
favoured their operations, and a great many brutal
robberies were perpetrated. Happily, a great deal
Df kindness was also shown by the more honest pea-
sants. The fire burnt all through Saturday night
tad the whole of yesterday, and is not:yet extinguished.
rhe entire town, with the exception of one or two
public buildings —including, strange to say, the
powder magazine and armoury—is destroyed. All
:he churches, the schools, the town-hall, the
Dank, hospital, factories, prison, granaries, and
ssyluir, and 600 private houses are in ruins. The
loss in money by this fire is estimated at over
1,000,0000.. The insurance companies that will
suffer most heavily are the Austrian l'heenix, the
Cracow Insurance Office, the Riunione, and the
Azienda. The number of dead has not yet been
learnt. Some reports state that over 100 people are
known to have been killed; other reports say only 40.
rhe number of injured and wounded is considerable,
and special trains have been carrying these sufferers
to Lemberg all day. Ambulances have also been
Drganised in several villages and country houses. The
population of Stry at the last census was, including
suburbs and garrison, 15,000. The majority of this
copulation is now completely ruined. Destitution so
sudden, swift, and irremediable has seldom fallen
apon a European town in modern times. All those
sppliances of civilisation which are intended to prevent,
aheck, or mitigate the horrors of fires broke down to-
gether. Yesterday a great many of the unfortunate
outcasts from the town were wanting food, as the tele
grams sent to Lemberg during the first hour of the
fire could convey no warning of the magnitude of the
coming disaster, so that the first supplies of food for-
warded by train were wholly inadequate. To day
there has been a more abundant provision, but the
task of relieving in so sudden an emergency a popula-
tion of 15,000 homeless persons is one of great diffi-
culty for so poor a province as Galicia. The Emperor
of Austria has sent a donation of 50001 to the
Go verr or of Lemberg for the relief of the sufferers
by the fire, and a committee will be formed at once in
Vienna to collect subscriptions, it may be hoped
that the British public, which has often shown itself
so generous in alleviating foreign distress, will not be
insensible to this urgent case—one of the saddest that
could appeal to public compassion.