Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-04-05
AWFUL FLOODS IN EUROPE
FOrty-TEO Villages Submerged and Eight
Thousand Homeless P30pla Suffering.
BRIDGES and HOUSES CRUSH
ED AND MANY LIVES LOST.
The Warta Breaks its Confines and Submerges
Part of the City of PoSen--Great Anxiety
Throughout Germany and Relief Be-
ing lnaugurated and Necessary.


ing lnaugurated and Necessary.
London Cable to New York Herald, March %.
The details from Germany are appaIl-
ing. The Elbe, Nogal, Vistula and Oden
rivers cover hundred miles. FOrty-twe
villages and hamlets have disappeared.
Miles of railways are practically az the
bottom of new lakes. Eight thousand
persons are homeless and ruined in cir
cumstances. Much of the area can never
be drained again, and even midsummer
must find thousands of acres of farming
lands still submerged along the Elb6.-
Ice gOrges formed in the river, dashing
away bridges, dykes, and embankments
even overlapping them crushing the
houses in their path as if they were egg
shells, drowning cattle and even persons
who were unable to escape the sudden
ness and velocity of the flood. Doubt
less DOr6's picture, "Noah's and the Del
uge," will suggest the actual scenes. Not
only were the rivers oyerfiOwn, but melt
ing snow from the land elevations added
new supplies of merging waters. An en-
bankment on the Nogal River, near its
| junction with the mouth of the Vistula,
fine piece of engineering work, broke
like thread, with the noise of a dozen
Krupp guns exploding. 1t is doubtful if
the city of Elbing escapes. The towns of
of Marienburg and JonasdOrf are already
partially inundated. Berlin newspapers,
which were recently occupied in sympa-
thizing with New Y Ork on account of its
snow calamity, are now wholly absorbed
contemplating the devastation at home.
The foods also extend further South
A whole district, that called BOdrog, in
Northern Hungary, is also inundated, the
rivers having destroyed all dykes and
about twenty villages. Floods from the
Szamos River have completely surround
ed the town of F6hergyarmat, where nu-
merous houses have fallen in; fifty vii
lagos of that district are converted into
heaps of ruins, and thousands of the in
habitants are left without shelter or food.
The high waters from the Thesis and
SZamOs Rivers, which have caused enOr-
nous destruction of property on their
way, have now reached Szeg6din, and the
flat district between Szeg6din and Tenn
esvar is threatened with submersion be-
fore the coming Saturday. As more def
mite particulars reach Berlin it is feared
the magnitude of the new deluge viii be-
come yet more appalling.
The loss of property and lives from the
floods is at present impossible to approx
innate, but it will reach large proportions
along the Vistula and Elbe. BattaliOns
of engineers have been dispatched to res
cue the inhabitants of towns and villages
which are still in danger on the Elb6.-
Fourteen soldiers were killed while en-
deavOring to remove an ice block by blast
ing. The distress is so great and prom
iseS to be so much more severe that sub
scriptions to aid the sufferers were to-day
opened by several newspapers. These
suggest that bill be laid before Parlia-
ment Immediately on its r6assembling
after Easter granting State assistance to
sufferers who have been ruined by the
unprecedented floods. Since l began
this dispatch fresh tidings come from an
other quarter. The Warta, a tributary
of the Vistula, burst through its embank-
ments near the Russian frontier, and an
inundatiOn ensued that laid great part
of the city of POsen under water, with
the waters throughout the district still
rising. DetachmentS of soldiers have
been ordered to the lower reaches of the
river to blast the ice which dams the
floods. AS for the Vistula, it now stands
higher at Elbing than in the unusual sea-
sons of 1856 and 1876.
PARTICULARS SEVENTY
TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE HOMELESS.
BERLIN, March Binding light
ming, thunder and exceptionally heavy
rain in sheets is the condition while
close this dispatch at 10 P. NJ. With re-
turns the magnitude of the storm dam
age increases. POsen is without gas, the
works being destroyed. The Rhine is now
rising rapidly, and the people are evaeu-
ating their houses on the lower banks
The inundations yet to come must be
many, as the snow averages four feet on
the forest lands, and rapid thaws are i'm |
Statistics here tonight show
that 1900 people of all ages are absO-
lutely homeless in inundated districts
The Mayor of Dantzig has telegraphed
the committee to aid sufferers, that the |.
distress along the Vistula exceeds the
worst expectations, and that there can
be no question of harvest for the in
habitants of the surrounding districts
this year.