The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1879-04-22
THE SZEGEDIN FLOOD. .
n GRAPHIC AND THRILLING STORY
OFA SUB1fERGED CITY, =

How the Dykes That Should Have
Saved Served to Destroy the People.
VIENNA, March 18.-Nothing less
than the destruction of a city Of
$4,000 inhabitants is the subject
which urges me to address your
readers. Szegedin, the capital of
thoroughbred yassiism, DIP athe
plains of the Thesis, where THE
Hungarians first chose to settle
after emigrating from their Asian
home, the plain being the ideal
country to a people which passed
moro than half its life time on
horseback. Since Hungary has had
an autonomous 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 wero com
mitted everywhere in Europe until
quite lately. Germany alone seems
to have found the right means of
treating rivers.n Besides the ems
bankments, impediments are thrown
in the rivers way onibeth sides, by
which it is forced to deepen it's own
bed. Although the river embank-
ments were in good order, the
Thesis, by bringing with it stones
and sand, had raised it's bed SO that
the floods became more dangerous
every successive year. Sno "
melted very early and very sudden
1y in the mountains this year, and
on that account
MANY AYALANCnEs FELL,
as for instance in Bleiberg. neo,
Villach, where balf village was
buried and tbirty~eight persons reo
manned dead on the spot. In the
Carpathian Mountains great deal
of snow fell this winter, which melt
sl and discharged. enormous quas-
titles of water into the valleys. T fOt
late the inhabitants of these dis !.
trlcts had become little careless,
relying too much upon the embank-
monts of the railways, which, dur
ing the last ten years, have been
carried across the plain in eyery
direction. Now railway embank-
ments may be useful sometimes, but
when the water gets into the coun-
try they close in entirely. they are
dangerous, because they retain the
water, which finds no outlet. This
was the case near Szegedin, which
lies in the very centre Of railway
embankments. Tho wnters of the
Theiss,. Maros and Koros had dur,
ing fortnight inundated the plain.
which was an enormous sea of water.
extending over one hundred square
kilometres. Besides this, heavy
rainfalls continued, and vet the
danger was not Immediate The
inhabitants were busy raising their
dlkes and looked hopefully into the
future, when all of O sudden a.
terrible storm of the northeast arose
which made the water rise in waves
high enough to overpass the dikes.
VI course against the clements in
such an uproar nothing effectual
could be done, although the SOL
dlers and pioneers were sent to aid
tue inha bitants of Szegedin. Only
few towns on, the Theiss plain
succeeded in preventing the waves
from flooding them by working all
day and night at their dikes. There
are besides New Szegedin, Szentes,
Czongrad and Vasarhily. The first
city flooded was Orashaka, whore
four hundred houses fell. In the
night between the 18th and 10Th of
March yIrIal~It
THE FLOODS BURST IN
upon Szegedin, so that within g.
few hours the roofs of most of the
houses and the tops of the lamp
posts were oil that could be seen.
The great misfortune there, as
everywhere in the Hungarian 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
adobos, which, of course, dissolve in Z
water. Therefore, the only houses
which still stand in }Szegedip are
built of real bricks, and these are
scarcely q twentieth part of the
town, III fact, little more than two
hundred. Everything else disap-