PAWS FLOODS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14784, 17 March 1910, Page 7

PAWS FLOODS.

THRILLING INCIDENTS.' Paris has been suffering from a flood of unparalleled magnitude. Can you imagine tho gay city isolated from its outer suburbs, and ruthlessly cut off on two sides from the rest of the world. How shall I describe its picturesque quays ana many of the oldest of the adjacent streets transformed by the irresistible How of the Seme into a tawny imitation ui Venice; how portray its liundreds of thousands of citizens watching with bated breath tl.o ever-swelling, ever-expanding waste of waters which threaten to sap the city's foundations; its 30,000 homeless, its scores of blind, sick, and paralytic hurriedly removed from submerged quarters to places of comfort and shelter, the police boats and relief barges carrying food and succour to hungry and distressed, or.the terror of the wealthier residents of fashionable and now inundated Faubourg, Saint Germain, hasten iug to take up their temporary abode in the leading hotels? These are but a few of the hundred-und-one salient facts and incidents which for yeais will vividly recall the present calamitous visitation, That this flood is noijiing less than a national disaster is shown by the official estimate of losses, amount iim in Paris and the provinces to £40.000.000 sterling. It has been announced, indeed, that the inundations now cover in widely divergent sections one-half of France,' the flood in Paris having beaten all records within living memory, surpassing the disastrous deluge of 1876, and reaching the high-waler level of 1802.

llain storms, melting snow, and intermitting sleet in the highlands of the Cote d'Oi, where the usually sluggish .Seine takes its rise, had for many days'conibined to swell ifs great tributaries, the Marue, the Yvonne, and the Grand iMorin, until the volume ol water flowing through P,aris created a feeling of excitement and alarm Hut even when the flood reached its height there was no panic. The Parisians, moved by lighthearted curiosity and wonder rather thai] downright anxiety, had watrl.ed the impressive spectacle as the rising stream overflowed its banks, and, hourly gathering up its strength, threatened to demolish the Pout d Auslerlitz, its firstobstacle. Thence it sped higher and higher to the wine quays at Berry, sweeping away hundreds of empty casks, dashing them later, with logs, broken furniture, carcases of animals, and other flotsam and ietsam. against the' solid walls of lie do' La Cite and He St.. Louis. Next the swirling forces there subdivided, and passed aggressively against Pont Henri Quatre and Pont de La Tournelle. which held the previous high-water record in 1658—namely, 29ft. Soon the nuays and landings on citbei side of the Seine were submerged. The bathing houses and washing establishments were almost on a level with the houses.. The river doubled its width, tho water crept through every opening, until the cellars of the Louvre were flooded and the rooms of the museum could no longer be heated.

LIGHT CUT OFF. On the opposite side, the Quai d'Orsay Station had' to be evacuated, the flood bursting iulo the unfinished tunnels of the metropolitan railway under Boulevard St. Germain. Nothing apparently could stem an invasion threatening the whole of this well-known quarter, from the Place de la Concorde to tlie Boulevard Malesherbes. The new Nord Sud railway tunnel was soon flooded, while the underground inundation on the left bank extended to Boulevards-,.Monlparnnsse.", AH the, public, clocks-were stopped by-the flooding , of the comprf(SS3d air chamber. Gradually the unchained, torrents of the foaming river worked devastation above ground, interrupting telephones, telegraphs, paralysing train and omnibus services throughout the central districts, and stopping the electric light plant supplying sections of the Champs Elysees and other districts. Tho Hooding o'i tlie power-houses on the lett bank cut off the light in the quarter between the Boulevard St. Germain and the Seine, and the turgid flood was washed ovcu' many acres of the streets. At Ivry, which is the worst sufferer, 50,000 people have ken thrown out of work. Many are even now being forcibly rescued from their tenements by the police. Tli9 removal of the sick in some districts gafe rise to many touching scenes. At Ivry, in the midst of the flood, there was an outbreak of scarlet fever, and • the patients were conveyed in motor ears to the Paris hospitals. The wine cellars at Bercy were early inundated, a great lake foaming over them, and the shops in the vicinity wero Hooded. Day after day heedless of the pouring rain, hundreds of thousands thronged the approaches to : the river, their eyes fixed m tho swollen streim as it sped and spread. - The water at Alfortville, above Paris, is 14ft deep, and many of the low-lying streets at Auteuil, the extreme western limit of Paris, are seriously inundated. Four hundred people had to be removed from a singlo small street, in which the houses threatened to collapse. Along the left bank traffic was impossible, and the houses by tho river are nearly up to the first storey in water. The He de Jatte, "with its trees and little restaurants, has vanished, except for the tops of the poplars and the highest storeys of the houses. Numerous villas at Asnieres, where many English families reside, and also surrounded with water, which has risen to the first floor windows. Of the oight bridges be tween Pont Neuf and Pont de Passy only three are open to traffic.

. THIEVES BUSY. Severe measures were taken against •thieves, who went about in boats endeavouring to pain access to the buildings, on the pretext of being engaged in life-saving, the troops working day and night under difficulties and discomforts of. all kinds. They had been reinforced by pontoon sections from the provincial garrisons and naval detachments with Berthon boats from Brest, Cherbourg, and other ports. A naval captain arrived on Wednesday with 120 men 'and 74 boats drawn from the Channel torpedo boats' division. The city itsejf has been divided into five military districts. ' " Almost the entire Jardin des Plantes' is undcr'<a sheet of water" (says the Paris edition of the New York Herald), " the monkey-house reeking with dampness. Only the crocodiles are lively. The serpents' room is flooded, and an evillooking python is wriggling about, very thin and washed-out. The serpnets should be fed to-day, but their caterer, it anpears, is protecting his island home at Choisy Le Roi from an invasion of rats. ' The horned cattle are dying,' says a keeper. What about the bears? lie was iisked. ' Well,' he replied, 'we have got them out of one well, Now they are over there,' pointing to a speck on the newlyformed ocean. It is a worse Medicament. Still, ultimately, a shelter raised on piles was provided for them."

The Paris correspondent of the Daily Mail says the means of transport, communication, and lighting in many quarters have entirely ceased, Even food is becom ing scarce. Carls and boats to succour

thoso cut off in their- dwellings are lacking. Where boats fail, the engineers construct rafts of packing cases, gates, and even chairs and tables to aid the sufferers. At various points in the suburbs at night soldiers distribute by torchlight straw and bedding for the homeless. The municipal boat services have been busy. There was a heart-breaking spectacle in front of the Town Hall at Ivry. Two hundred housewives, many of them accompanied by their children, clamored for bread, which they were unable to buy. . Happily a provision servico Was soon organised, and their needs wero satisfied withojit much'delay' Over 30ft of water was registered at the Pont Itoyal yesterday, and more than 32ft to-day. It was pointed out that one sinister consequence of the present floods may be an epidemic of typhoid fever, since foul water from the drains, which now fills so many of the Paris cellars, is bound to leave a deposit of sewage. The sewers are no longer working, and the water of the Seine is driving back into the sewers all the filth which is normally carried far beyond the area of the capital. The matter thus deposited with tho mud m the cellars may easily constitute a source of infection.

As early as Wednesday the Rue Royale and- Rue St. Honore, had been closed to trafhc, as had also tho Faubourg St, Germain. AI. Pichon and his staff had abandoned one wing at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and arrangements had been made for turning the Seminary of St. Sulpice and tho Pantheon into dormitories for refugees from the inundated districts. Public service utilities gradually suesumbed to the flood. Only two of the great trunk railways were in direct munication with Paris-namely,- the Western railway and Northern railway, in the course of yesterday afternoon. After a slight pause in the rise of the watcrs_ there was a fresh and most menacing increase in the current. The Seine 13 running 15J miles an hour.

ONE VAST LAGOON. The Times says :-" One of the most striking rtspecls of the flood is that which is visible from the 1 quays alowj the foreign Office and the neighbouring railway station, Des Invalides, down to the lufle] Tower. The fatter, though stand--' mg'lGlt below the Seine, is not considered endangered. The railway station itself Ill's 30ft below Uio Jevel of the road, and is inundated up to tfte skylights'. From Uip Invalides station the railway lino to Versailles'runs between two massive stona walls close to the Seine. It lias been inundated tin to the level of the roadway, and, looking over the parapet, one sees a great torrent of water 30ft or 40ft deep and about ZOft broad racing under thd railway arches, with which it is now. nearly level, and almost submerging tiny signal-posts. Only the tops of the'telegraph posts are visible, with all the mass of telegraph wires submerged. This mighty current, on the railway to some extent relieves the pressure on the Seine bridges below the Quai D'Orsay, although all tl» arches of Pont Do Lalma, except the central one, are invisible, and in:the ' centre one there is only a gap of some 18m, which scorns to be'duo solely to thV downward swirl of the enormous mass of water that is sweeping under it. Troops of soldiers are busy with spades shovelling up emergency carlh-dylies where tlin water is invading the roadway," As tbo correspondent of The Times remarks, it is as if the Thames were lapping over the wall of the Embankment, and also emerging in swirling eddies from the skylights and doors of tfje Charing Cross, Temple, and Blackfriars underground railway stations, the 1 whole under? ground line being flooded to tho brim. On the Quai D'Orfevros, in the fitful light of gas flares, gangs of men are pulling up paving stones and flint-sets in the roadway, and piling them up in a cemeted barrier against the threatened wall. The river at that point almost reached the,top of the embankment wall and nearly 3ft above the level of the roadway. The portals of the Louvre along tho river frbnt were defended by bags of sand and. cement, arid the museum staff was on duty ' throughout the night. ' In many other parts of the city the roadway has been torn up by tho Engineer Corps at threatened points, in order to furnish material for the construction of a barrier against the flood. The Catho-. dral of Notre Dame is perfectly secure',but the water has invaded the basement of the structure. The cellars of the Hotel De Ville are under water, and pumping produces little or no effect. Chapelle is flooded. The lower, portions of the Conciergoria are under water, and tho administration of justice in the courts is completely disorganised.—Argus correspondent.