Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1854-07-21
A Storm in India.

A Storm in India.
The following report from cor
respondent, on whom we can rely,
of an awful phenomenon, happily
unknown in temperate climates, will
be read with astonishment
"At P. NJ, on the 10th of APP
Ri, while we were measuring the cir
conference of the large hall-stones,
that fell lightly about US, terrible
storm passed TO the southwest Of tho
station, about seven miles of. The
accounts brought by natives the next
morning were so strange that | did
not believe them, but, after some
gentlemen had visited the spot and
confirmed all, |, too, went to see the
wreck left by the hurricane. As
some days had elapsed siuce the hur-
ricane, found it impossible to APP
proach the chaos from the putrefac-
ton of numbers Of dead bodies
An eye witness told me that, while
it was blowing pretty stiff from tho
southwest, jet black mass of cloud,
towering high aloit, and almost
touching the ground, was seen to ap-
proach another similar mass adj
vancing rapidly from the opposite di-
rsction. They whirled around each
other, the heat became intense, and
enveloped in the greatest darkness,
houses, bamboos, trees, men, women
and cattle were whirlcd into the
whirwind, dashed in all directions
against trees, impaled on bamboos,
or buried in the ruins. On the
sides of the track of the storm huge
hail-stones fell to the size of bricks.
The track was about 800 yards
broad its length is not known, nor
the extent of the devastation ascer-
tanned 90 dead bodies were count
ed by gentlemen who went there;
Is persons with limbs torn and man
gled, with broken arms and legs, are
now in the hospital. Report says
that 300 have been killed, besides no
end of cattle. think it very prob
able. As the natives build their
houses, each family in little separate
farms hid in clumps Of bam-
boos, with intermediate fields,
the scene presented is that of num-
bers Of indistinguishable masses Of
clumps of bam5oos and trees torn
up, crossing each other in every d.
reciion, and blocked up with earth
and materials tina: had formed hou-
ses, so entirely broken up that moth
ing 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 il was
not always easy to imagine what
they had belonged TO. From under
the masses of rubbish, jackals and
vultures were pulling out the remains
of human beings and cattle in small
puddles, dogs, goats, &C., were
drowned and rotting. The fields
were covered with the skeletons Of
human beings, while the short, thick
branches of trees that stood lcafless
and barkless supported numbers Of
vultures. Vullures covered the
plain, too gorCed to fly at our ap-
proach, and hundreds were soaring
in circles high over head, in the
clear sky, marking in the heavens
the course of the storm. One poor,
iamished, distracted being, with head
bandaged and body scratched all
over. bruised and cut. limped up to
me he had lost all his relations
father, mother, wife and children
all had been destroyed, and he could
not find where they had been carried
away. 1t would require hundreds Of
men TO remove the piles of uprooted
bamboos and trees that mark tho
homesteads that were missing; under
them will probably be found those
that were killed, while some proba-
bly, had a living grave, hoping
alas in yain--that rescue would
come at last, or imagining, possibly,
that the whole world had been de-
stroyed. A bungalow of a zemin-
dar, at Dumduma, on the River
Ghoghu,, was blown in smithers
across the river-300 yards; in the
roof two men found flying passage,
and, strange to say, survived"