BARGES DESTROYED BY ICE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 20

BARGES DESTROYED BY ICE.

X O_ _ • 300 WORKMEN PERISH. .v _ y Graphic descriptions have been received, ® per Reuter message, of the scene at As- '^ trakhan when, a caravan of barge 6 -with [. their tugs were storm-driven from the s. river bank and carried down the Volga „ towards the open 6ea. The Volga is , c now ice-covered and in flood. c The hapless craft were dashed one against the other, and were stove in by driving ice-floes. Most of them were soon mere wrecks, to which the men clung r until overcome by the cold. The themes'' motet stood very little over zero Fahrenheit. 1 Splendid work was accomplished in ai- & most pitch darkness by two ice-breakers f and three other steamers. They suet ceeded in rescuing over two-thirds of the 1 6 1000 workmen, whose lives depended on j B heroic promptitude. There is little doubt that the remaining 300 all perished. In the desperate chance of saving more> lives the steamers have been battling day ; and night against the solid masses of ice \ which hava meauwhilo formed at the Volga estuary, barring access to th» : barges which have partly survived their i battering by ice, flood, and storm. According to the latest news, threo of ' . th« steamers hay» forced a passago to I 1 the open sea. t The whole Astra Ithan coast and pro- . vince have been devastated. The fishing r industry in ruined— depots, boats, and nets , ' are nearly all destroyed. An extraordinary rescu* was effected near Kamisik. The Government steamer Michael was proceeding along the coast i when the look-out man saw on the shore i what seemed to bo a block of ice from which several human heads were proI trudiug. It transpired that ten Khir- , gizes had boen sleeping in a mud hut, • which was bo splashed with water durt ing the night that a thiok coating of ice • prevented all egreos. The Khirgkes [, tried to force their way out through the • roof of the hut, and when the eteanier ; arrived some of them had just made apertures large enough for their heads to I get through. '

The rescue party used hot water and steam in order to releaso the imprisoned inmates. The Tsar has ordered that a sum o£ £1000 shall be allotted from the Special Emergency Fund for the relief of the 7ic-. Tims ou tho Caspian Sea.