THE AVALANCHE TERROR,

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13494, 22 May 1907, Page 9

THE AVALANCHE TERROR,

Oxe" of the most piteous instances of the risks that the peasants of Switzerland run from avalanches is told of the hamlet of Burgoletto, in tho Upper Strura Valley at the foot, of the Piedm'onteso Alps.

It had been a terrible season for avalanches. Tluy began when two children were tobogganing on a snow field. Suddenly the snow began to move. It seemed tho whole world was moving. The terrified children were carried down on the crest of snow waves, that racked and curled.' In tho valley below a. wedding procession ran a joyous course, with tinkling sleigh bells and cries of joy. Bride and groom with 16 relatives were utterly overwhelmed by the avalanche, and their bodies found only when the warm sun melted the mass in the spring. Next day, in sinister silence, the village of Tauctsch was buried at dawn by a mountain of powdery snow, wind blown and porous. Out of 130 persons who were wondering why the morning did not break, 55 got out unhurt. But in Burgoletto five long weeks elapsed before even the roofs of the houses could bo reached by 300 rescuers. Think' of these sad men walking high up on the frozen . mass, and boring for the housetops with great iron rods 70ft long! There seemed no hopo until the warm winds began two months later. And yet when, after five weeks' work, a perpendicular tunnel, reached the house of a shepherd named Raccia, and rescuers lowered themselves, as down a chimney. Raccia's wife and sister-in-law, with his little boy and girl, were found alive. Tho stout oak props of an outhouso had kept the great snow masses. from crushing them to death, while they had lived upon a goat, some fowls, and. the freshly-made week's bread.