TOWNS OVERWHELMED

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 146, 21 June 1923, Page 7

TOWNS OVERWHELMED

FLIGHT BEFORE ETNA'S FURY

FORESTS AND FARMS BURNED

DIVINE AID SOUGHT TO STEM AWFUL FLOOD.

(UNITED PKESS ASSOCIATION.—COPVRKrHT.) (AUSTRALIAN • NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) HOME, 19th June. The fury of the Etna eruption has not abated all day. The flow of lav.a is aided by new craters on the western slopes of the mountain, particularly by the caving-in oi the side crust of the crater which was active iH years ago, and is three miles from the central cial-er. The seriousness of the crisis is shown by the fact that Signor Mussolini* who was at Florence, hurriedly returned to Rome to organise relief, while King Victor is taking a special traiu en route to Sicily to lead the rescue work on the spot. The eruption is a splendid, but terrible, spectacle. Throughout Southern Italy the glow of the burning mountain can be seen, even as'far as Naples, which is 200 miles away. The actual flames shooting into the air can he eeen from a distance of 80 miles. Deafening reports resembling the roar of great guns can be heard all over the province. A horrible aspect of tile disaster for. Sicilians is the continuous rain of cinders, which ignite anything they touch. Thus the forest of Castigljone was destroyed in a few hours. Molten lava burned the roots of thu trees, then flames caught the brandies until the desolation was complete. Despite all the horrors of the ■visitation, peasants in the threatened districts are reluctant to leave their homes.

Thousands of the inhabitants of Linguaglossa and Castiglione had to be driven forcibly from their homes, as they refused to believe that death and destruction could be so near, though the lava stream was at their very gates and the first houses were crumbling, in the path of the creeping lava. When the people were frenzied with fear they stayed praying in their churches or brought out statues of the saints and placed them in the path of the oncoming lava-, kneeling in the roadways, while priests called upon Heaven to stem the awful flood. Every form of invocation" and prayer was to be heard, and the- priests often had great difficulty in shepherding their charges back to safety. In one case the prayers seemed likely to be miraculously answered. . When the first houses in Linguaglos6a were tumbling in the lava flood, there seemed a chance that the town might be saved. By a strange, freak the lava stream divided into two arms. The peasants insisted that this.was due to St. Egidio, whose statue had been carried to the stream.

The town of Giarre had a terrible experience. The frightened townsfolk had collected their few belongings and were on the jxiint of fleeing- for their lives, when a rain of hot stones was flung up from jthe crater. There was a rush for safety indooi-3, though some of the sto<j:s, which weighed over two pounds, were crashing through the roofs, When the rain of stones ceased the people fled to Riposto. Practically all the inhabitants of the threatened area are now Hwnro of the danger of continuing near the eruption and ars trekking to the const, and the Messina roads are choked with a medley of homeless men women, and children, carrying bundles and pushing hand-carta.

Apart from the destruction of the towns, the countryside laid waste includes some of the finest and most fertile land in Sicily. ' Between Monte Rosso and Monte Roselle there is a plateau from which the lava dropped a .sheer 200 feet like a waterfall of fire into the wooded countryside.below. Trees were quickly ablaze, and as the lava collected among the blazing timber the place looked like a lake of tire, fed by a cascade of burning lava. The course of the lava is nearly the same, as that taken in September, 1911, which wrecked the railway near Castiglione. The lava has already spread almost to the sea between Messina and Taormina. Villages between the mountains and the coast are obliterated. Wells for miles around Etna have dried up, and the heat is intense.

During the eruptions in recent years sellers of icss and cooling drinks have made, big profits, plying a thriving trade within a few hundred yards of the lava stream, moving their pitches as the lava advanced. But there is nothing of this kind now. Everyone is putting as much space between himself and x.tna as possible. European geologists are disc.ussing the cause of the disaster and point out that a.ong with the news from Etna comes the report of an earthquake in Kan^oon Loth places he along the line of weakness which geologists call Libbey's Circle.

The Government has dispatched at full speed a squadron of iieropkuej (v approach Etna from the air and report what stops can be lakeu to help the population. Iho Pope lias sent a million i;«, to rsliei missions.