Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-06-02
THE STORY NOT HALF TOLD,
A Probable Death List Of Over Eight
Thousand,

A Probable Death List of Over Eight
Thousand.
SANG Hollow pa, June 1st.-1 A. NJ
The first accounts sent out of the Johns
town disaster are far below the widest est
| mates placed upon the extent Of the ca
lamity, and instead of 1000 or 5000, it is
probable the
DEATH LIST WILL REACH EIGHT THOUSAND,
And many say 10000. 1t is now known
that two passenger trains, two sections of
the day express on the Pennsylvania Rail
road, have been thrown
INTO THE MADDEYED TORRENT
And passengers drowned. These trains
were held at Johnstown from Friday at II
A. II, and were laying on the siding be-
tween Johnstown and Conemaugh stations.
An awful torrent came down a narrow
defle between the mountains, distance of
| nine miles, and with
FALL OF THREE HUNDRED FEET
In that distance, sweeping away the
villages of South Fork, Mineral Point,
Woodvale and Conemaugh, and leaving
but one building standing-a wooden mill
| where, but an hour before, had stood hun
dreds of buildings, and, dashing on with
| the
ROAR OF A CATARACT
And the speed of the wind upon the fair
city al the foothills. The plane in which
| but Yesterday sat JohnstoWn sits in the
| mountains like
JEWEL IN DIADEM.
The great Gautier Steel Works sat in this
plane and the city below it, the railroad
| tracks bounding it at the base of the
mountains on the north. Here is where
| the trains were standing when a tide of
water
LIKE A CATAPULT
| Came down on them with such resistless
| force that heavy trains, locomotives, and
| all else were overturned and swept down
| with the torrent and lodged against the
great stone viaduct along with forty-one
| locomotives from the Johnstown round
house. the machine.sa.ossn Ponderous
| frame work of the GiEt4uer Ifill, and the
| accumulated debris of
MORE THAN THOUSAND HOUSES,
Furniture, bridges, lumber, drift, and
| human beings. The low arches of the
| viaduct choked up immediately, and the
| water rushed back over the entire level of
| tlC NdllCy upOu Tie CITY SlOOu, 10 Il
| depth of what, from the water works, indi-
| Gates about IS feet.
In the great sea thus formed thousands
of people were
| STRUGGLING FOR LIFE,
The scene to-day is one OF the most har-
| rowing possible for the imagination of man
to conceive. Accumulated drift gorged up
at the viaduct to a hight of forty feet. and
| then took fire from the upsettipg of stoves
or lamps. Then were
STRONG MEN MADE SICK
At the sight, as the flames roared among
| the dry timber of the floating houses, and
human bodies were soon pinioned among
| the house-roofs, locomotives, iron beams
| and the freight, passenger, Pullman and
baggage cars, the greedy flames licking with
haste their
DIET OF HUMAN FLESH.
The scene was horrible beyond descrip.
ton. Human beings, from infancy to
| withered old age, were
BURNED BEFORE THE EYES
OF the behold srs, and no rescue from such
| fate was possible. Strong men turned
away with gonized expressions, and
| women shrieked at the horror of the scene.
The
DEAD BODIES
Have been computed at not less than 5000,
and the number may even exceed this esti-
mate. This seems incredible, but until the
waters shall have abated and the work of
removing the dead from this tremendous
mass shall have been completed, it will be
impossible to tell how many lives have
been lost.
A HEART-BRoKEN PARENT.
On boards stretched along the tops of
pews were thirty bodies which had been