RIGOROUS WINTER

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 41, 18 February 1929, Page 7

RIGOROUS WINTER

THAMES FROZEN UP.

Icebreakers Clear Passage In River. MUCH PACK-ICE REPORTED. (British Official Wireless.) (Uemvfd V- noon.) RL't.BY, February 17. Although there ivas a rise of a fewdegrees 111 tpinpcrature throughout Britain yesterday and to-day, the rigorous wintry conditions are still maintained. Skating is general all over the country and lakes and ponds in London parks and suburbs are crowded. For the fir-t time in the history of Rugby League every football match had to be postponed yesterday. Icebreakers are maintaining a passage way on the Thames, but the river is completely frozen over above Oxford. There is much pack-ice on the upper reaches. Torn by Wolves. Though there are thaws at a fewisolated places in Europe from the Baltic to the Adriatic, the Black Sea is still frost bound. A Rome message states that a group of recruits for the Albanian Army, accompanied by a couple of gendarmes, were marching through Premedi, towards Kontz, when they were surrounded by 50 famishing wolves. Only the gendarmes were armed. They shot seven wolves before exhausting their ammunition, but the wolves again attacked. Some of the recruits climbed trees, but eleven were torn to pieces. In Berlin a large gasometer near the Northern Railway Station exploded and dislodged huge blocks from surrounding buildings and scattered the debris over great distances. Six people were seriously injured. An Athens message says that Greece's share in Europe's terrible winter takes the form of Hoods. The Rivers Vardar and Struma have overflown their banks and huge areas are inundated. Many cattle were drowned and many farmers were rendered homeless.