PARIS IN PARLOUS PLIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 24, 28 January 1910, Page 5

PARIS IN PARLOUS PLIGHT.

DAMAGE £40,000,000.

THIRTY THOUSAND PEOPLE HOMELESS. TYPHOID OUTBREAK FEARED. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.! PARIS, January 27. The continued snowfall is still swelling the Seine, and the water is pouring over the parapets of the embankment. A lake forming caused the evacuation of the Foreign Office, the Hotel de Ville, and the Palais de Justice, where divers are saving the archives. The Chamber of Deputies is contemplating adjourning to Versailles. Traffic has been suspended on Rue St. Honor and Rue Royale, where the water has caused serious subsidences in the roadway. A national fund is being opened for the relief of sufferers. An immense amount of water is percolating underground, and there is great anxiety lest the sewers get blocked by the Seine, driving back the filth which is normally carried beyond the city. Medical scientists fear an outbreak of typhoid, on account of the drainage, which is now filling many cellars. It is estimated that there are 30,000 people in Paris and suburbs homeless. The refugees are sheltering at Saint Sulpice Seminary and the Pantheon, where beds and heating apparatus have Deen installed. Other former church buildings are being similarly utilised. The Dion and Bouton motor car factories at Puteaux, 11 miles west of Paris, are closed, throwing 3500 workers idle. Reuters official estimate of the damage is £40,000,000. SEINE AND MARNE SUBSIDING. THREATENED BREAD RIOTS. FOOD PRICES GO UP. (Received 5.30 a.m.) PARIS, January 27. The Seine and the Marne (the main tributary of the Seine, just outside Paris) are now subsiding. Some of the arches which carry the Orleans railway line overhead in Paris were undermined by the floods and collapsed. Owing to the distress the price of provisions has risen seriously, and bread riots are threatened in the city. Thousands of people were rescued yesterday in the eastern suburbs, but GOO still cling to the submerged dwellings. The platform of the Gare de Lyon (the railway station where the south of France trains take their departure) has collapsed, and the water under the Qua! d'Austerlitz has burst the roadway. The strip of Paris which is chiefly affected by these disastrous floods is that which runs from the Place de la Concorde and the Avenue de Champs Elysee to the eastern end, or Faubourg St. Antoine, and includes the Rue Royale (in which is the famous Mixime restaurant), the Madeleine. Chambre de Deputies, Quai d'Orsai (where the Foreign Office is situated), the Rue de Kivoli, the Louvre, Hotel de j Ville, and other well-known places and thoroughfares.