SEQUEL TO FLOODS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23109, 8 February 1937, Page 9

SEQUEL TO FLOODS

GAS EXPLOSIONS AND FIRE

SEVERAL DEATHS FEARED (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph —Copyright) LOUISVILLE, Feb. 6. (Received Feb. 7, at 10.15 p.m.) Two gas explosions and a fire, due to the effects of the flood, destroyed two two-storey buildings in the heart of the business section. It is believed that six are dead in the wreckage, while it is known that the injured number 12 Rescuers will be unable to search the ruins until gas, which has accumulated in the building after the flood damaged the main, has cleared away The loss is at 50,000 dollars. The upper floors comprised small apartments in which there were many flood refugees, and several were injured jumping from secondfloor windows before the walls crumbled.

Two similar explosions in 24 hours razed a business building and a factory. No one was killed, but the loss is estimated at 100,000 dollars. The water is falling at Cairo and in the Lower Mississippi River. IPoints are still endangered, however, and the dynamiting of several levees is being considered.

SEVEN BODIES RECOVERED MEMPHIS, Feb. 6. (Received Feb. 7, at 11.30 p.m.) • The levees are holding along the swollen Mississippi, but an epidemic of dysentery is reported among levee workers, resulting in an order to chlorinate all wells. The crest of the flood reached Memphis and is falling steadily. Seven bodies have been removed from the wrecked Louisville buildings, and three others are believed to be buried among the debris.

CALIFORNIA THREATENED

NEW YORK, Feb. 7

(Received Feb. 7, at 11.30 p.m.) Steady rain melted snow on the mountains, threatening floods in Southern California. An earth slide blocked one railway, and water covered the tracks of another in several places. A kinema company consisting of 35 persons, including Judith Allen, Gene Autry and Smiley Brunette, is marooned in the town of Kernville, where the flood covered a bridge upon which workers were piling sandbags. In an effort to save 800 marooned people in the town of Woodlake, evacuation of the town and the lowlands nearby has been ordered. Six people are dead through subzero weather in North Dakota, scores of motorists are marooned as the result of snowstorms throughout the North-west, and 160 Minnesota High School students are marooned in a country schoolhouse.