BURIED UNDER SNOW.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 52, 2 March 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

BURIED UNDER SNOW.

TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES IN SOUTHERN RUSSIA. An Odessa correspondent, under date of January 12. writes:—The story of the terrible sufferings endured by the luckless railway passengers who were ceught in the awful blizzard which has raged without intermission for nearly a hundred hours over the whole of

South Russia Is now partially known, and

the new details which are slowly coming In only add to the horror of the experiences and increase public amazement at the Incompetence of the authorities. Hundreds of passengers left St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kleff, and a score of Intermediate stations six days ago bound for Odessa, little dreaming they were destined to spend their Russian Christmas Isolated from the rest of the world for five whole days and nights, half-hungered and nearly frozen to death. Six days ago the first train, containing five hundred passengers, stuck in the snow a little to the south of Razdyelnaia. Little fear was felt but that the snow drifts, though already twelve feet deep, would be o.niekly cleared away, and passengers made themselves as comfortable at the junction station as circumstances would permit. As twelve, eighteen, and then twenty-four hours passed, three more trains drew up at Razdyelnaia. Then telegrams, some hopeful, some desperate, kept arriving from head-ciuarters at •Kleff, and eventually something resembling a panic seized the eighteen hundred pnssengers huddled together, shivering in the bitter cold at' the station. To add to the horrors of the situation, the station food supply showed signs of giving out, nnd famine prices began to prevail. Passengers In vain demanded to know what measures were being taken by the authorities to rescue them. The stationmaster himself was shut up in his house, two miies away, and had to be dug out.

Another twenty-four hours passed, and two mote trains arrived laden with terroris?d passengers who had just finished a ruii or forty miles In sixteen hours.

STORMING THE BUFFET. The new arrivals stormed the refreshment room. Strong men fought with weak ■nomen, and children even, for the possession of a slice of stale bread. Such luxuries as ham, sausages, and boiled eggs had disappeared long since. Children wept for very hunger, and the condition of the women, who had tasted nothing for thirty-six hours, was appalling.

Meantime gangs of men were battling w'th the snowdrifts, which were now In places thirty-five feet deep; but where were the snow-ploughs snugly stowed away? Heaven only knew where; the authorities did not.

Two days more were spent in digging a plough out, but the snow already had the upper bund, and no snow-plough, no matter with how many locomotives, could make any headway.

A sort of mobilisation of the soldiery at several barrack centres was determined upon. A regiment was despatched from Kleff southward, and 3000 Fusiliers were sent out from Odessa northward. The only hope lay in the shovel.

At last, on the third day of their Imprisonment, it was found possible to despatch a couple of trains further south. MAD RUSH FOR SEATS. The joy of the famished passengers knew no bounds. Two thousand of the total of f>o'> now huddled together at the Junction boarded the two trains with a rush, In which the wenkest had to go to the wall. The trains started, proceeded for eighteen hours, and stuck again. The engines were reversed; they covered three \eists and, re.yens! stuck again. A perfect pandemonium prevailed Inside the carriages. Curses were levelled at the heads of the ra way n■nmifemcnt; ladles fainted, children clung to their parents, and even strong peasants broke down and wept. The blizzard continued to rage with demoniacal fury, and within an hour the snow was up to the tops of the carriages.

Three hours later, from the engine to tho guard's van, the two trains were completely burled.

The horrors of that night were indescribable.

Next morning a call was made for a volunteer to take a telegram to the nearest out-of-the-way station, six miles back. A peasant passenger volunteered. Women on their knees wished him God-speed. The gallant fellow reached the station with several fingers completely frozen, and despatched his wires, one to the Minister, M. Khilkoff, in St. Petersburg, nnd another to the Governor of Odessa, beseeching assistance and food, for the senders were almost fren.led with cold and hunger.

The supply of firewood on the trains had given out, and not a drop of water remained In the heating boiler. DRIVEN TO DESPERATION. Driven to desperation, sixty passengers, with Count Knpnist among the number, determined to strike out on foot two days ago.

Better it was to risk death In the snow than spend another night among the horrors of the train, not the least of which was the human stench within from the mass of human beings huddled together in the compartments which they could not leave. Count Kapnlst and forty others reached a point from which it was possible to hire sledges, and arrived In Odessa last night. How many had fallen by the way Is unknown. Meantime Governor Schuvaloff had organised a train of sledges in Odessa, on which he despatched piles of provisions and clothing and a quantity of vodka. After Herculean efforts .-ese reached the besieged the night before last. The helpless passengers were delirious with joy at their deliverance, many of them having had either arms or legs coinplete'y frozen. The conduct of the railway authorities all through Is loudly condemned. The storm has abated during the last 24 hours, and 18,000 men, principally soldiers, are still hard at work. The long suspense as to the fate of friends is intense In Odessa, but an official notice to-day declares that the besieged trains will get through here to-night.

No post has been received here for six days, and provisions In the south have doubled, even trebled, in price, and the shipping trade has been practically at a standstill for a week.

Corpses have been kept for eight days in Odessa through their Inability to get through the snowdrifts lying outside the town on the way to one of the cemeteries.