The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1854-07-06
a Storm in India.
From Tile Cu2cutta Enc7idintGn.

rom I ne CCttCNtttt I~{fl'} LS!tfitttN.
The following report from oorrespon-
dent, on whom We can rely, OF an awful
phenomenon, happily unknown in temper
ate climates, will be read with astonish-
ment:
At P. NJ. Of the 10th Of April, while,
we were measuring the circumference Of
large hail-stones that fell lightly around
Us, terrific storm passed to the south
west of the station, about seven miles oil.
The accounts brought by natives next
morning were so strange that L dl9 not
believe them, but, after some gentlemen
had visited the spot and confirmed all,
I, too, went to see the wreck left by the
hurricane. As some days had elapsed
since the occurrence, l found itimpossible
to approach the chaos from the putrcfac-
ton Of numbers of dead bodies. An eye
witness told me that, while it was blowing
pretty stiff FROM the south west, a jet black
mass Of cloud, towering high aloft, and
almost touching the ground, was seen to
approach; another similar mass advancing
rapidly from The opposite direction. They
whirlcd round each other, the heat be-
came intense, and, cnyclopod in the great
est darkness, houses, bamboos. trees, men
women and cattle were hurled in the
whiriwind, dashed in all directions a.
gajust trees, impa.ed on bamtoos, or bur
ried II the ruins, On the sides ofthe track
of the storm huge hail-stones fell the size
Of bricks. The track was about 500 yards
broad; its length is not known, nor the
extent Of the devastation ascertaiIed; 69
dead bodi es were counted BY gentlemen
who went there; I5 persons with limbs
torn and mangled, with broken arms aud
legs, are in hospital. Report says that
300 have been killed, besides no end Of
cattle. | think ii very probable. As the
natives build their houses, each family in
little separate farms hid in clumps O.
bamboos with intermediate fields, the
scene presented is that of numbers of un-
distinguis liable masses of bamboos and
trees torn up, crossing each other in eve
ry direction and blocked up with earth
and materials that had formed houses, SO
entirely broken up that nothing could be
recognized as having formed roof or sides
In fact, boxes, beds and things made Of
planks were so broken into pieces of a
foot or two and thrown about, that it was
not always easy to imagine what they had
belonged to. From under the masses Of
rubbish iacGalls and vultures were pulling
out the remains Of human beings and cat.
tie; in small puddles dogs, goats, &C.,
were drowned ana rottinc. The fields
were covered with the skeletons of hu-
man beings, while the short, thick branch
es of trees that stood leaaess and barkless
supported numbers Of vultures covered
the plain, too gorged to fy at our approach,
and hundreds were soaring in circles high
overhead in the clear sky, marking in the
heavens the course Of the storm. One
poor, famisled distracted being, with head
bandaged and body scratched all over,
bruised and cut, limped up to me; he had
lost all his relatioas-father, wife and
children-all had been destroyed, and h2
could not find where they had been car
ried away, 1t would require hundreds Of
men TO remove the piles Of uprooted bam-
boos, &c, that mark the homesteads Of
the missing; under them will probably,
be found those that were killed, while
some, probably, had living grave, hop
iDg-alas. in vaiH-that the rescue would
come at last, or imagining, possibly, that
the whole world had been destroyed a
bungalow of 2 zemindar, at Dumduma, Oh
the River Ghogbut, was blown in smith
crs across the river-300 yards; in the
roof two men found flying passage, and, !,
strange to say, survived.