FEARFUL STORMS IN EUROPE

Grey River Argus, 5 October 1949, Page 4

FEARFUL STORMS IN EUROPE

Three Countries Are Devastated

(Rec. 10.0). LONDON, October 4. Fearful storms have left trails of death and devastation across Italy, Spain and Sweden.

The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent at Rome says: After a day of rescue work, the latest reports place the death roll at over one hundred in a vast inundated tract east of Naples. Whole families were wiped out when the River Volturno burst its banks at Capua, destroying £750,000 worth of goods. More than one thousand square miles were flooded. Italian Army and police rescue columns are still trying to drive a way to the towns and villages that are isolated in great stretches of mud. The Times correspondent at Madrid reports: The death roll in Spain has more than doubled since 25 were drowned or buried alive, or struck by lightning in Andalusia last week. Deluges in th e north and the west of Andalusia have since washed away houses, crops, food and stock. Six rivers in the area overflowed. Hundreds are homeless. The main lines of traffic are blocked.

Storms have swept south and central Sweden, causing three deaths, says Reuter’s Stockholm correspondent. The 91-year-old King Gustav was forced to abandon a duck shooting holiday because of the storms. ROME, September 3

At least thirty people, including many children may have been drowned in floods which has devastated nearly one thousand square miles of Italy. Thousands of buildings have collapsed and torrents of water are swirling through the towns and villages of four provinces. Army transports are rushing food to the devastated areas. They are being guided by planes, acting as spotters. The Italian Government has granted 25 thousand sterling for relief work. (N.Z.P.A.—REUTER CABLE)

(Tsc. 11.27). NAPLES, October 4. Twenty thousand inhabitants of the flood-stricken city of Benevento, 40 miles inland from Naples, ploughed through deep mud this morning to find that the storm waters have caused half a million sterling damage, and have wiped out the value of all the reconstruction done since the war. Two thousand homeless people spent the night in the schools, and law courts. Army columns, with relief supplies, are struggling slowly through seas of mud, but a bright sun is now shining over the whole flooded region. Storm in Sweden STOCKHOLM, Oct. 3 A violent storm sweeping south and central Sweden has drowned a lighthouse keeper in the Stockholm archipelago and a schoolboy sailing off Gothland Island. A deck-hand on a schooner bound for Gothenburg was killed by a falling spar.