ANOTHER DAM BURSTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14806, 9 October 1911, Page 7

ANOTHER DAM BURSTS.

BUILDINGS WASHED AWAY. -'v..\ ... v ;" k ; :; ,'r m .,' .k' ' .'!■ T'T. ;'■}■■. ' ; wV/ AMERICAN TOWN DOOMED. By Telegraph.— Association.—Copyright. (Received October 8, 7 p.m.) ' • New York, October 7. The Power Company's dam at Brackwater Falls, Wisconsin, burst owing ; to heavy rains," and. the business sec- . % tions of the town, consisting of from y 25 to 30 buildings, were washed away. Two persons are missing, and it is f believed that, the town is doomed.. : \:i

TWO SIMILAR DISASTERS., . : | The bursting of the big dam of the Bajf* liss Pulp Paper Company in Austin, Pennsylvania, on October 1 last, almost ob literated that town, which had a population " : v," of 3200. Six hundred persons were ~ drowned or killed." The debris caught fire, and the town of Costello, below Austin, ; ■ containing a population of 500, was also annihilated. ' Practically every, building in the town was levelled by the torrent. The town of Wharton also suffered to ' some extent. • Twenty feet of.' the dam gave way, letting free* 500,000,000 gallons" V'X of water. . The roar ,of ■ this enormous body was heard miles away. 'The B value • of the property destroyed amounted to millions of. pounds sterling. , . .'/.These recent disasters recall .the great catastrophe which inundated the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on May 31, 1889. At five \ > p.m. on the day named the South Fork - reservoir, a lake . about four miles : square, ; t burst the huge dam. A mass of water rushed down the South Fork, four-miles, ' by the deep circuitous Couemaugh Valley, to its junction with the Conemaugh' River, -> driving all before it. For a, distance of about , 12 : miles round: Johnstown the flood swept out towns ~ and villages, destroying all the bridges, railways, and factories. '•••'' :&) South Fork, Johnstown, - Cambria City, Morrelville, .Sheridan, and- other flourishing towns were "completely blotted out. A great mass of floating wreckage, which was stopped by a stone .railway bridge at ' : Johnstown, took fire. .. About 500 persons i who were I hurled on the burning. mass '• v . perished, and in all about 6000 people •' : were killed. " , , -