The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1891-09-19
TERRIBLE FLOODS IN EUROPE.
Thousands Of Lives Lost and Great
Damage Done i'm the South
Of Spain.
MOST UNEXPECTED RUSH OF WATERS.
Hundreds of People Drowned in Their
Beds, Who We're Wholly I'm
conscious of Danger.
The Full Extent of the Damages by
the Flood Cannot yet he Ascer-
tanned. But it Will be
Great.


MADRID, Sept. 15-Ihe floods which
have caused so much damage and which
are already known to have resulted il
the loss of thousands of lives. have beer
general in the south of Spain. The dam
age done is simply terrible in it's extent
Several railroad trains have been de
rallied and railroad tracks and roads are
everywhere washed away. In the
province Of Toledo the rush of water
from the Consuegra river was so sudden
and unexpected that hundreds of people
were drowned in their beds. The aspect
of the town is positively frightful. -Four
hundred bodies have already been re-
covered and at least a hundred corpses
can be seen floating in the swollen river.
A national relief fund has been started.
The overlooking of the Consuegra
threatens to usefurther damage. Two
thirds of the houses of those destroyed
are still standing, but their foundations
are Slapped and they threaten to fall at
any moment. Families saved from
drowning are camped zeal the dwellings
formerly occupied by them and are in
the greatest distress from want of food.
An estimate, classed as a moderate one
and which is within rather than Over the
actual number, places the total of the
death list at 1000. Large numbers of
corpses still rest where they were found,
and unless they are soon inferred an cpl
demic of fever is feared. Municipal and
government authorities are exerting
themselves to the utmost in order
to relieve the extreme distress
existing. So far as possible the bodies
of the drowned are being gathered from
the streams muddy banks and ruins and
are being buried in trenches dug for
their reception. Many of the bodies
found are entirely nude, showing that
they must have been washed from their
beds or else in the hurry to escape
drowning the people must have jumped
in their night dresses from the windows
OF the houses only to meet death in the
swollen waters surging around them.
Sorrow and %privation, mourning and
desolation are to be met with every
where through the inundated provinces
and from n end of Spain to the other
prayers are uttered for the dead and col
l~ections are being taken up for the liv-
ing. Along the river banks near the
scenes of the most severely visited dis
tricts he~artrendering occurrences are
witnessed hourly as the survivors of al
most exterminated families recognize
their dead and try to save them from
consignment to the common death
trench.
The utmost praise is due to the troops,
physicians and clergy and to the sisters
of charity who in this emergency have
shown themselves to be capable of al
most superhuman efforts on behalf of
the sufferers from this most disastrous
Hood. All seem actuated by a desire to
do everything possible for the living and
the dead. Unhappily the worst is not
yet known and months of terrible pri-
yations and extreme suffering are before
the utterly impoverished survivors.
Crops are gone. cattle swept away, houses
household furniture ruined and all
that would enable them to earn their
bread, has vanished beneath the tor
rents which have rolled over towns
and villages, fields and farms.
The extreme distress and positively
ravenOus feeling of starvation which pre-
vailed in many sections of the food de-
vastated country has another and if
possible blacker side. CripIngs of hun
"uiiIiS VI Stdl' wig NOlltn anu |
children have in several instances driven /
men to desperation and they have been
to pillage their luckier or more
wealthy compatriots. Bands of desper-
ate men determined to obtain bread at
any cost for their destitute, hunger-tor-
tured families have been driven to max
ing raids upon and pillaging buildings
where they expected to find food. In !
cases the rioters were success
full in finding a limited supply
of flour, wheat, and corn. In most cases ,
they found that they had their trouble
nothing, and that all food had long
ago been removed to a place Of safety or
else distributed or sold to the starving
peasantry Of the neighborhood. Troops
have been instructed to resort to severe
of protection. Two thousand
kilos of army bread have already arrived
the flooded districts and the commits
sariat corps of all the military divisions
are working night and day to supply pro- :
to the starving people.
When the government delegate in
of the first consignment Of bread
rom the army bakeries arrived in the
flooded country he witnessed a scene
which would have impaired to a heart of
a feeling Of sympathy. On all
~ Il