DANUBE FLOODS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17133, 8 September 1926, Page 11

DANUBE FLOODS

100,000 PEOPLE HOMELESS

MUSK-RATS AND THE DYKES

VIENNA. July 26

Reports received here from Belgrade indicate that the Danube flood i.s the greatest, water catastrophe for centuries. The King is personally directing relief, while Cabinet Ministers and Government employees have surrendered portions oi their salaries for the relief of the homeless, who number almost 100,000. Jbe destroyed crops will bo left this winter, but the next greatest danger to he coped with is the possibility of epidemics spread by mosquitoes from hundreds ofi miles of rotting vegetation, and dead animals.

A graphic story of the havoc caused by the floods was told to me to-day by Countess Corf van dcr Linden, whose European home is in Holland, and who arrived at Vienna last night after an exciting trip by water from Belgrade to Budapest, during which she traversed a wide inland sea", which now covers almost 500,000 acres of.the richest granary of Central Europe; '" En route from Belgrade," she said.

" the' boat- encountered several rudelyconstructed rafts floating down-stream, with peasants and their families working the sweeps. Children, chickens, and pigs were perched on piles of trunks, boxes, and household goods, while men and woroten warded off floating objects, preventing collisions. Several families wore taken from the rafts which had been held up audi half overturned by protruding tree tops and church steeples, and the refugees were taken on board the river boat, where European and American tourists contributed food and spare clothing to the water-soaked survivors.

" As far as the eye could reach on both sides of the channel followed' by our steamer, water spread out in all directions to the horizons. In some places the river was reported to be. 50 mile.sj wide, and it is not possible to estimate the extent of damage, which is expected to reach a fabulous sum. From the, boat deck we located submerged roads by the tops of rows of poplar trees. Frequently we passed bodies of cows and horses floating- downstream, and once a big dog clawed at the. side of the. boat, but was whirled away by the current before' he could be pulled on hoard.

'• Some fifteen years ago musk-rats were introduced into this region, in the hope of developing the fur industry, hut the F.uropoanised progeny of the imported .musk-rats developed looser biting teeth instead of fur, and the peasants hlame these water rodents for weakening the dykes by tunnelling through them."