WHOLESALE RUIN

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 56, 7 March 1930, Page 9

WHOLESALE RUIN

SCENES OF DESOLATION

WORST DISASTER OF KIND

PARIS, sth March. Ten thousand square miles of Southcm Franco are flooded. It is the worst catastrophe of the kind in French history. The three rivers, Tarn, Orb, anil Herault, have broken their banks, but the indications are that the flood has reached its maximum. A survey of the damage reveals th.at it is even greater than was feared. At present the loss of life can only vaguely bo •. approximated. The material loss, as already stated, will bo many millions sterling. No fewer than fourteen departments have been wholly or partly devastated. Parliamentary representatives lmrriedly convened a conference. The Chamber of Deputies decided that an immediate inquiry should be opened. Meanwhile the urgency of, relief has prompted the passing of a credit of a quarter million sterling. SWEEPING INUNDATIONS. 1 The destructive, character of the inundations was sweeping, and dramatic. All telegraphic and telephonic communications are severed and arterial road 3 destroyed, while hundreds of factories and power stations, and thousands of farms, are ruined. Dwelling-houses collapsed, and many bridges are swept away. An order for seventy coffins has been received at Toulouse from the prefect of Tarnet Garonne. Aeroplanes are surveying the devastated area. More buildings collapsed in the Tarn Valley, and Eeynes, which has been almost totally destroyed, reports fourteen deaths. The" fire brigade from Toulouse rescued twenty-two persons who for forty-eight hours had been precariously perched on roofs and in trees. Eighty-one were rescued from the other towns. Nearly all had been immersed in water for two days. The scene now that the waters are receding is one of utter desolation and destruction along 120 miles of rich country, 30 to 40 miles wide, embracing more than, a hundred important communities. A woman was trying to save her paralysed father when she was swept away and was drowned. Her husband rescued the invalid.

PERILOUS RESCUE. Troops are feeding and sheltering thousands of people. Women are ■weeping and men cursing the fate that destroyed their life's work. Eescuo work is not merely a matter of boats and rafts; it is as perilous as lifesaving in rough seas, for the floods in many places are not placid lakes but raging torrents. One rescuer was drowned after saving at least a hundred people. The Mayor of Moisaae, where the dam burst, said: "It was a terrible sight when dawn broke. Whole rows of houses were torn, do.vn and many poor souls were trapped in bed and buried in ruins. Their dreadful cries were heard throughout the night, but wo were helpless in the darkness."