FROZEN LANDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23227, 22 December 1938, Page 11

FROZEN LANDS

COLD IN EUROPE BRITAIN UNDER SNOW MORE DEATHS CAUSED REFUGEES IN POLAND appalling suffering By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received December 21, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON. Dec. 21 Europe is in the grip of the coldest spell for many years, which is causing intense suffering and numerous deaths. Hi vers and canals are frozen all over Europe, and snow has fallen even on the French Riviera: Snow is falling throughout Britain, dislocating road and rail traffic. The temperature in London is 10 degrees below freezing-point and still dropping. A member of the Royal Air Force vras killed when his aeroplane landed in Shropshire and turned over on the frozen surface. A train skidded owing to ice on the track at Greenwich and four coaches were "derailed. There tfere 10 deaths throughout Britain yesterday as the result of the cold. Hot watejc pipes in six houses froze causing the boilers to explode, wrecking the rooms, pne person was killed. Many villages are isolated by a foot of snow. In Berlin the temperature was 30 degrees below freezing point and it was the coldest day for 80 years. The river Danube is frozen. Factories throughout France are closing because their boilers are frozen. In Rumania 11 persons were frozen to death. From Warsaw it is reported that 5000 refugees huddled in no man's land between Poland and Germany are undergoing appalling sufferings. Six hundred have been stricken with influenza and there have been 10 deaths. Ike lagoon at Venice is frozen over.

SHIP IN DISTRESS FRENCH TRAWLER'S PLIGHT EXPEDITION ON BOARD QUARRELS AMONG MEMBERS PARIS, Dec. 20 An amateur wireless operator in the United States picked up on short-wave an S.O.S. from the French trawler lie de Bourbon, at the Island of St. Paul, in the Indian Ocean. He passed the message on to Admiral Lackey, Commander of the American squadron visiting Villefranche, on the Riviera. Admiral Lackey advised the French Government, which ordered the Madagascar radio to make contact with the trawler. The lie de Bourbon left Brittany in May carrying 48 members of an expedition to establish a lobster fishery and form a French colony at St. Paul. The S.O.S. reported that the vessel's coal had run out and as a. result of bad weather her position was critical. The exi>edition was under the command of M. Horn de Boar. A French warship is speeding to the rescue of the vessel. ' The wireless operator of the colony is suffering from scurvy. Dissension among members of the expedition is serious. Each of five married couples, among whom there are two babies, are living in separate quarters. The expedition had intended to spend three years at the island. St. Paul acquired ill-repute as the result of the failure of an expedition in 1929, the members of which died from disease.