Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-04-13
THE sZEGEDIN FLOOD.
A Graphic and Thrilling Story of n
submerged City-HOw the bikes
that should have saved served
to Destroy the People.


subject which urges me 10 address your read.
the capital of thoroughbred
Magyarism, IN tie plains of the Thesis,
where the Hungarians first chose to settle
after emigratlng from their Asian home, the
plain being the ideal country to a people
which passed more than half its lifetime on
horseback. The Thesis plain is a district of
ancient renown, where Attlla with his Huns
had already settled 1t was thers that the
famous Ayar Ring, or fortress, was situated,
in which Charlemagne found SO much gold
and silver accumulated that the value of
these precious metals after the discovery fell
by one-third. 1t was also the scene On which
the Turkish wars were fought, and IN 1S49
the scene of the revolution quenched by
the aid of the Russians. All these
as nothing to the destruction which
the foundations of the Thesis cause every
year, and which now end In so complete
catastrophe. Since Hungary has had an au-
tenomous government great efforts have been
made to regulate the course of the River
Thesis, but we fear that great technical
faults have been committed in this work.
Faults of the same KIND were committed
everywhere IN Europe until quite lately. Ger
many alone seems to have found the right |
means of treating rivers. Besides the en-
bahkments lI1ipediments are thrown in ii .
rivers way on both sides, by which it IS
forced to deepen its own bed. Although the |
river entertainments were in good order tie |
Thesis, by bringing with it stones and sand, |
had raised its bed SO that the foods became |
more dangerous every successive year. Snow !
melted very early and very suddenly IN the |
mountains this year, and on that account |
many avalanches fell, as for instance in Blei- |
berg, near VIlach, where half village was
buried and thirty-eight persons remained
dead on the spot. In the Carpathian mount
aims great deal of snow fell this winter,
which melted and discharged enormous
nt,fi IF inf no lnfa
the inhabitants of these districts had become
little careless, relying too much on the en-
| bankfients OF the railways, which, during
the last ten years, have been car
ried across the plain N every direc-
ton. Now railway entertainments may
gets into the country which they close In en-
| tirely they are very dangerous, because they
| retain the water, which finds no outlet. This
was the case near Szegedin, which lies IN the
| very center of a number of railway embank-
ments. The waters of the Thesis Maros and
| Koros had, during fortnight, inundated the
| plain, which was one enormous sea of water.
extending over one hundred kilometres. Be-
sides this, heavy rainfalls continued, and yet
| the danger was not immediate. The inhabi-
! tants were busy raising their dikes, and looked
hopefully into the future, when ali of a sud-
| den terrible storm from the northeast arose
| which made the water rise IN waves high
| enough to oYerpass the dukes. OF course,
against the clements In such an uproar moth
ing etfectual could be done, although
soldiers and pioneers were sent to aid
the inhabitants of Szegedin. Only few
towns of the Thesis plain succeeded IN pre-
| venting the waves from flooding them, 10y
working day and night at their dikes. There
| are besides New Szegedin, Szentes, Czongrad
and Vasarhily. The first city flooded was Ora
shaka, where four hundred houses fell. In
the night between the eleventh and twelfth
g u, a.. H.
SO that within few hours the roofs of most
of the houses and the tops of the lamp
posts were all that could be seen. The great
misfortune there, as everywhere IN the Hun
garian plain, is that few houses are built
of real bricks, the greater part being built OF
bricks made of lime and water and dried in
the sun, like Mexican adobes, which of course
dissolve in water. Therefore the only houses
which still stand in Szegedin are built of real
bricks, and these are scarcely twentieth part
OF the town, in fact, little more than two
hundred. Everything else disappeared in
the food Szagedin numbered seventy five
thousand inhabitants, according to the last
census, and nnety-ive hundred buildings, OF
which about five thousand were dwelling
houses. The work of destruction was sud-
den as terrible. All was over in a few hours /;
therefore it is no wonder that great loss of
| life was incurred. The number Of the dead
is put at nineteen thousand. One hundred
laborers are busy from morning to night
burylng the dead IL the neiehboring village
e Ifzss Ttrte Insufficient IS save The frightened
inhabitants, many of whom the danger bell
: tolled out of their sleep. When boats enough
, came the soldiers had hard work to row
through all the lumber tossing about on the
waters and to induce the frightened people
to let themselves be saved, as the greater
part OF them refused to get OH
their housetops into the boats without
their poor property, which could not be
| rIoro ct1nh oIrn "a
die all of US than 1--we without our beds and
our cofeepots!" was what they all said. a
: very happy circumstance was that the en-
bankments of the Southern railway remained
intact, so that help could continually be got
from Temesvar and the rescued sent away
in that direction. Ia the first hours this
could not be thought of. The desperate peo-
pie chung to the dikes, climbed up trees,
filled the few stone houses to OVERLOOKING.
Many were frozen to death in the first nights,
the wind blowing mercilessly through their
scauty, wet clothing. Twenty were found
frozen to death and twenty three went mad
from terror, and have been sent to the mad
house In Pesth. The brave men who risked
their lives a thousand times to bring help
were witnesses of the most heartrending
scenes. Sometimes as they approached a
housetop or tree to which drowning people
chung these could hold 'on no longer, and
dropping IN the water were drowned before
{ the boats could reach them. An old man in
the center of mound of piled-up rubbish
, was heard calling desperately for help, but it
was impossible to approach him, and he
persisted. white-haired grandmother was
seen diving for something. She found it
az last-her drowned grandchild, which
, she held up toward heaven, laughing
hoarsely, a mad-woman's laugh. An expe-
dition from Pesth, headed by a member of
parliament, arrived three days after the
catastrophe, and he tells US that even then
| hnI off la, Il Af,,l
A small rafter was floating by them, when
one man espied small baby on it, tied to
, dlvan. The expedition was quick enough
in bringing the poor little one into safety, but
its parents have not been found and are most
likely drowned. Then a woman signalled to
them from roof. When they approached
they thought she had tainted. She seemed
lifeless, SO that they had to bear her into the
bat. She was not ten minutes there when
feeble wall betrayed the awful fact that
she had given birth to child-a boy it turn
ed out to be. All these people were taken to
the station yard high IN water, and some
were sent away to neighboring town and vii
lagos. Thousands found shelter in railway
cars which came from all parts, but the
greater part remained in the open air, where
the cold and the wet has made many of them
very ill, especially, of course, the
other evils that tormerted the poor, stricken
inhabitants Of SzegeGin was hunger, for
of course with so many lives to
save, victuals could not be thought of. But
very soon whole trains full of bread, cheese,
meat and wine came from Temesvar and
Pesth and brought relief The railway COM
panies send everything gratis, and now large
quantities of clothes are daily being carried
to the southern station. Subscriptions were
opened the very next day and have had fine
results. Thus the PeStheJ'- Lloyd, German
Hungarian paper. received eighty thou
sand forms, and tee Neue Erie Presse, of
Vienna, fifteen thousand horins, although it
is the organ least friendly to Hungary. Ber-
lin has sent fifteen thousand marks, and all
the institutions in the country societies,
unions and the like, have sent large sums.
The emperor, in his own and the empress's
name, gave fifty thousand Aonns and went
to Szegedin in person to assure the Inhabl-
tants that everything within human power
would be done for them. The emperor was
moved to tears by the misery around, and he
told the people that the empress was return
ing home much earlier than she had intended
from the hunting season In ireland On their
account. The member for Szegedin informed
the Hungarian national assembly that the
damage done in Szegedin amounts to about