THE SEINE FALLING

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 16

THE SEINE FALLING

j STEAMBOATS IN COMMISSION. PARIS, March 15. The Seine lias fallen 20ft, and in consequence the steamboats have resumed running. THRILLING INCIDENTS. j Paris has been suffering from a flood !of unparalleled magnitude. Can you imagine the 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 and many of the oldest of the adjacent streets transformed by the irresistible flow of the Seine into a tawny imitation of Venice; how portray its hundreds of thousands of citizens watching with bated breath the 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 carryj ing food and succour to hungry and distressed, or the terror of the wealthier residents of fashionable and now inun- , dated Faubourg, Saint Germain, hastening to take up their temporary abode in : the leading hotels ? These are but a few of the hundred-and-one salient facts and incidents which for years will vividly recall the present calamitous visitation. That this flood is i nothing less than a national disaster is j shown by the official estimate of losses, amounting in Paris and the provinces to £40,000,000 sterling. It has been an- . nounced, 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 j of 1876, and reaching the high-water level j of 1802... Rain storms, melting snow, and intermitting- sleet in the highlands of the Cote d'Or, where the usually sluggish Seine takes its rise, had for many days com- . bined to swell its great tributaries, the Marne, the Yvonne, and the Grand Morin, until the volume of water flowing through Paris created a feeling of excitement and alarm. But even when the ; flood reached its height there was no j panic. The Parisians, moved by liehtj hearted curiosity and wonder rather than ! downright anxiety, had watched the" impressive spectacle as the rising stream I overflowed its banks, and, hourly gatherj ing up its strength, threatened to deI molish the Pont d'Austerlitz, its first obstacle. . Thence' it > sped higher and j higher to the wine quays at Bercy, sweep- { ing away hundreds of empty casks, dash- | ing them later, with logs, broken furni--1 ture,, carcases of animals, and other flot- | sam and jetsam, against the solid walls jof lie de La. Cite and He St. Louis. j Next the swirling forces there subdivided, i and passed aggressively against Pont j Henri Quatre and Pont de La Tournelle. : which held the previous hie;h-water record : in 1658 —namely, 29ft. Soon the quays and landings on either 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, the water crept through every opening, until the cellars of the Louvre were flooded and the rooms 1 of the museum could no longer be heated. I LIGHT CUT OFF. I On the opposite side, the Quai. d'Orsay Station had to be evacuated, the flood bursting into the unfinished tunnels of. the metropolitan railway under Boulevard St. i Germai.i. Nothing apparently could stem 1 an invasion threatening the whole of this i well-known quarter, from'the Place de la ! Concorde to the Boulevard Malesherbes. ' The. new N T ord Slid railway tunnel was | soon, flooded, while the underground i inundation on.the left bank extended to Boulevarde Monitparnasse. All the public clocks' were stopped by the flooding of the compressed air chamber. Gradually the unchained torrents of the foaming 1 river worked devastation above ground, interrupting telephones, telegraphs, paralysing train and omnibus services throughout [the central districts, . and"'.stopping the I electric light plant supplying sections, of ' the Champs Elysees and other districts, i The flooding of the power-houses on the ! left bank cut off the light in the quarter between the Boulevard St. Germain and the .Seine, and the turgid flood was washed | ovc* many acres of the streets. At Ivry, which is the worst sufferer, 50,000 people br.ve been thrown out of 'work. Many are even now being forcibly rescued from their tenements.by the police. , The removal of. the sick in some districts I gave, rise to many touching scenes. At j Ivry, in the midst of the flood, there was 'an outbreak of scarlet fever, and the patients were conveyed in motor cars to the Paris hospitals." The wine cellars at' Bercy were early inundated, a great lake foaming over them', and the shops in the vicinity were flooded. Day after day heedless of the pouring rain, hundreds.of. thousands thronged the approaches to.the . river, their eyes fixed on the swollen stream 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 single small street, in which the houses threatened to collapse. Along the left bank traffic was impossible, and the houses by the river are neaaiy up to the first storey in water. The He de Jatte. with its trees and little -restaurants, has , vanished, except for the, topk. of the pop},' lars and the'highest stor,e|s 'of^t-he.houses, v Numerous villas at where many. English families reside, and also surrounded with water,.which has risen: to the first - floor windows. Of the eight bridges be- ' tween Pont Neuf amd Pont de Passy only three are open to traffic.

| THIEVES BUSY. Severe measures were . taken against •thieves, who went about in boats endeavouring to gain 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 Bertbon 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 itself has been divided into five military districts. " Almost the entire Jardin des Plantes is under 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 appears, 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 ? he was asked. ' 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 predicament. 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 becoming scarce. Carts and boats to succour those 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 service was soon organised, and their, needs were satisfied without much delay. Over 30ft of water was registered at the Pont Royal 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 the mud in the cellars may easily constitute a source of infection. As early as Wednesday the Rue Royale and Rue St. Honore had been closed to . traffic, as had also the Faubourg St Germain M. Pichon and his staff had abandoned one wmg at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and arrangements: had been made for turning the Seminary of St. Sulpice and. the Pantheon into dormitories for .refugees from the inundated districts, lubhc service utilities gradually ' sucsumbed to the flood. Only two of the great trunk railways were in- direct communication with Paris—namely, the Western railway and Northern railway, in the course of yesterday afternoon. After a slight pause in „ therise of the waters there was a fresh and most menacing increase in the current. The Seine 13 running 15f miles, an hour. ONE VAST LAGOON. : The Times says :—" One of the most striking aspects of the flood is that which is visible from the quays aW the ioreign. Office and the neighbouring railway station, Des Invalides, down'to the Eiffel. Tower. The latter, though standi: ing 16ft below the Seine, is not considered endangered. The railway station itself lies 30ft below the level of the road, and ■ is inundated up to tne skylights. From the Invalides station the .railway line to Versailles runs between two massive stone walls .close to the Seine. It has been inundated un to the. level of the roadway, and, looking over the parapet, one sees a great torrent of water 30ft or 40ft deep' and .about 20ft broad racing under the' railway arches, with- which it is how nearly level, and almost submerging the. 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 oh the Seine ■ bridges.below ,the Quai'D*orsa>v although all the arches'of Pont Do-Lftlma, . except the .central one, are invisible, .a,ndl in the centre one there is only a gap-of some' 18in, which seems to be-due solely-to the | downward swirl of the enormous mass of I water that is sweeping under it.- Troops of soldiers are busy with spades shovelling up earth-dykes where" ' the j water is invading the' roadway.'.' As the correspondent of The Times remarks, it is as if the .Thames were lap-' ping over the wall of the. Embankment 1 ■and also emergingin swirling eddies from, the skylights and doors of" ihe Charing Cross, Temple, and Blaekfriars underground railway stations; the., whole under- ■ ground line being flooded to-the brim. 1 On the Quai D'Orfevres, in the;fitful light > of gas flares, gangs of •■■'men-are' pulling ! up paving stones and flint-sets iii the road- ■ way, and piling them Tip in a cemeted \ barrier against the threatened wall. The i river at that point almost reached the top , of the embankment wall and nearlv 3ft above the level of the roadway. The j portals of the Louvre along the river front I were. defended by bags of sand and i cement, and. the museum staff .was on duty ' , throughout the night. ;(■- .-.<:• <£ ,j ~-: .In. rrian-y .other, parts .-.of the -city the : roadwayl- has-been 'torn-up' by the 'EngPi heer Corp».at>.fchiseate-»ed- : points, in order ■ to fwmish fflaterM'-'for the 'rohstfuctkm' of a barrier against' the floods The"CatK'c- \ 'dral of Notre Dame is perfectly secure, but the water has' invaded'the basement j of the structure. The cellars of the Hotel J

De Ville are under water, and pumping produces little or no effect. Chapelle is flooded. The lower portions of the Conciergerie are under water, and the administration of justice in the courts is completely disorganised.—Argus correspondent.