PHENOMINAL THUNDERSTORM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16102, 17 June 1914, Page 7

PHENOMINAL THUNDERSTORM

EXTENSIVE DAMAGE IN PARIS.

UREAT LOSS OF LIFE.

BUILDINGS WRECKED AND GAS

MAINS EXPLODED

IMMENSE CHASMS IN STREETS.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. PARIS, June 16. (Received June 16, at 11.35 p.m.*

Tho city to-day experienced the worst thunderstorm recorded for 50 years, A torrential downpour continued for two hours and a-half. Several sewers burst, and their subsidence caused a hole ISO square yards and 40ft deep in Place St. Phillippe Duroule. A crowd was standing under an awning when 15 were whirled into the flood and momentarily engulfed. Five of them were drowned. Yawning gaps 10ft across appeared in many roads, which collapsed into the excavations for electric underground railways, some 50ft deep, into one of which a motorbus fell, .killing a number of passengers.

Two taxicabs fell into 'a 30ft hole, killing three persons. Several. buildings collapsed, and many cellars were flooded. Gas mains exploded, blowing up tho pavements. ■ ' Electricity failed in the underground railway in Place de Concorde, and there was a panic amongst the passengers. A similar panic occurred in the street, where a wild rush was made to escape the crumbling eaTth. Even the police fled. The damage in Paris is estimated ■at fully £500,000. The storm struck a building in course. of construction at Choisy Le Roi, wheTe 20 masons were working. Two were killed- and eight seriously injured.

It is believed that 30 may be found beneath the debris of the metropolitan railway, which, collapsed in various places.