French Flood Disaster

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 70, 6 March 1930, Page 5

French Flood Disaster

Appalling and Widespread Damage

Death Roll Believed to be Four Hundred

Towns and Villages Isolated

(United Press Association—By Cable—Copyright.)

(Received 6, 10.55 a.m.) Paris, March 5

The “Evening News” correspondent states that every hour brings fresh news of the flood disaster. The death roll is now believed to be at least 400, including scores of farmers’ families drowned in districts inundated many feet by the three rivers, the Tarn, Orb and Herault, bursting their banks and cutting off from the outside world • the towns of Montauban, Beziers and Moissac and isolating hundreds of villages. Panic-stricken refugees from Moissac arriving at Toulouse relate terrible stories of the midnight inundation, trapping hundreds asleep. Scores were trampled to death, mothers and terror-stricken children fighting to escape. Thirty houses in one street alone were swept away by a wall of water. Others collapsed, burying the occupants.

It is reported that roads are flooded to a depth of 45 feet. Relief is impossible owing to the lack of boats, although hundreds of people are» seen on the roofs, calling for help. One thousand cattle have been drowned.

THOUSANDS HOMELESS. (United Free. Association—By Cable— Copyright.l (Received 6, 11.125 a.m.) Par s, Marcii 5.

It is officially announced that 150 are dead and 3000 homeless in Moissac. Eighty per cent, ol the nouses in the Tarn and Garonne valleys are destroyed. As 4 climax to the Mont Auban Hoods a dam burst, and a torrent ten feet deep swept Moissac and carried off 50 houses, then spread over the Garonne valley for 40 miles. It is not known how many oi Moissac's 9000 inhabitants perished. Five hundred families are homeless in Castres. Rafts had to be improvised for patients and nurses from St. Ouen Hospital. •

One-fifth of France's richest vineyards have been destroyed. DETAILS OF DAMAGE. Paris, March 4. Torrential rain in the Languedoc region caused the loss of more than 30 lives. Rivers overflowed ana farms were devastated for miles, the railway destroyed, bridges collapsed, and vineyard, submerged. Perpignan is completely cut off. Six hundred men were marooned in a partly destroyed factory at Cambres.

The inhabitants of Mont Auban believed the end of the world had

come, their houses falling down. A dozen soldiers engaged in rescue work were drowned m view of scores ot helpless onlookers. Patients were remoyed from the hospital in boats. More rain has fallen in 24 hours than the average for a year, besides water pouring down from the snowdad mountains. Four Cabinet Ministers have gone to supervise relief. There were heartrending scenes 111 villhges neat Mont Auban, where people marooned on roofs were praying for help. A hundred houses collapsed in the village of Keynes, where an aged parish priest was saved, bui his housekeeper perished in the ruins of the presbytery. One of the rescuers was drowned, while pnother liad tc swim for his life. The “Da.ly Mail's” Toulouse correspondent says that the floods are the worst experienced in South France since 1875. Hundreds of miles of roads ha -e disappeared and bridges were swept away. The river Tarn i-ose suddenly while the population of Mont Auban were in bed. Soldiers and police formed a chain to rescue one family, but a tree trunk swept, down and broke the chain. Ten soldiers were drowned Scores oi inhabitants of Castres are believed to haise been drowned when the waters rosfe and overwhelmed dwellings The floods were caus ed by heavy snowfalls in the Cevennes melting. The damage, it is believer! will reach millions sterling.