GAY PARIS A SCENE OF DESOLATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7038, 28 January 1910, Page 1

GAY PARIS A SCENE OF DESOLATION.

30,000 PEOPLE HOMELESS. SEINE STILL RISING AND INVADING LOWER QUARTERS. FEARS OF TYPHOID EPIDEMIC.

(Press Association—Copyright—Received January 28, 0.5 a.m.)

, PARIS, January 27. Snowfalls continue .to swell the flood in the Seine, and water is.pouring over the parapets of -the embankment. The formation of a lake behiiid the protective wall has caused the evacuation of the Foreign Office, the Hotel da Ville, and the .Palais de Justice, where divers aao engaged saving the archives. 'Tho Chamber of Deputies is contemplating tho question of adjourning to Versailles. . . . '' Traffic is suspended in the Rue St. Honor and the Rue Royale, ■ where, serious subsidences of the roadway have occurreiT. A national relief fund has beenopened. An immense amount of water is percolating under the foundations of buildings, and causing great anxiety. The sewers are not working, as the flood water from the Seine is driving back filth which under, normal; conditions is carried beyond tie city, and medical scientist's fear an epidemic of typhoid from the drainage filling many cellars.- ' ■ ■ ..'■''

It is estimated that 30,000 people in Paris a.nd its suburbs are homeless, and refugees are sheltering in Saint Sulpice Seminary and,the, Pantheon, where beds and heating apparatus are being installed.' Other former church buildings are being similarly utilised; The Dion Bouton motor-car factories

at Puteaux have been closed, rendering 3500 employees workless. Reuter states that official estimates place tho damage at £40,000,000... MORE TOWNS UNDER WATER AND ABANDON-ED. SOUTHERN EUROPE SWEPT. LONDON, January 26. Traffic on. the Paris-Orleans railway has been suspended. •','.. The town of Gharentso-n, near Paris, is flooded. The inhabitants of Macon, capital of the department of are abandoning their dwellings. Violemi winds and ' torrential rains have been experienced in Italy. Ma.ny ships were damaged at Naples, and telegraphic cornnranication was broken. WALGETT IS SAFE EARTHWORKS KEEP WATER IN CHECK. SYDNEY, January 27. The town of AValgett, which was threatened by floods, is safe from immediate inundation. The embankments aro holding up, and the water is stationary.