SWEPT BY TORRENT

Evening Star, Issue 21220, 29 September 1932, Page 11

SWEPT BY TORRENT

STRANGE FLOOD TRAGEDY PEOPLE TRAPPED IN TUNNEL. A terrific downpour of rain on the mountains behind Nice just before midnight a few weeks ago caused one of the strangest flood tragedies in the history of the Riviera. In but a few minutes the bed of the River Paillon, usually almost dry at that lime of the year, was swept by a torrent which rose lo a height of more than 6ft. The Paillon runs beneath the city, through a wide concrete tunnel half a mile long, which is used as a shelter by homeless folk, who at the moment arc unusually numerous. They were trapped in their slumber by the flood waters, and some—it is not yet known how many—were swept out to sea and drowned. In the afternoon, after a search, about a dozen appeared to ho missing. The alarm was raised when screams were heard during the height of the storm, and the firemen of Nice worked heroically through the night to reach possible survivors. They waded waist-deep into the torrent, and threw ropes to struggling men and women. One woman was holding desperately to a concrete pillar, against which she was. forced fiat by the force of the current. The firemen threw a ropo to her, and she made a desperate leap to grasp it, but was carried away before the eyes of 1,000 helpless onlookers. In the darkness beneath Barla Bridge, further_ up the river, searchlights revealed struggling groups of three and four people. None of them reached the lifebuoys which firemen threw to them. t Other rosenors. held securely by ropes tied round their waists, went into (lie torrOi;i up ihc-lr hips and saved four men, uoim of whom could give any dear account oi what had happened.