DREADFUL FLOOD IN SWITZERLAND.

Taranaki Herald, Volume I, Issue 38, 20 April 1853, Page 4

DREADFUL FLOOD IN SWITZERLAND.

A correspondent at Clmmouai furnishes iho following graphic picture of the phenomena;-*

" On Friday morning, the 17th of October last, the aspect of the River Arve, as it tore through the village, hurrying forest trees, planks, nnd fragments of wooden bridges on Its turbid Haters, nnd momentarily rushing higher and higher u]> its banks, was enough to excite tho gravest approhenninu. All the people in the villa c turned out by beat of dium to' help each other in the np. preaching calamity. ' Ere nine o'clock, a.m., tho river had burst its banks, nnd flooded the whole of the lower part of tbe valley, sweeping away the fl« crops of the poor cottagers left out to dry, and covering their scanty supplies of food ond corn, with thick layer* of mud composed of the debris of granite and shale rocks, which will take years to remove. The increasing force and power of the torrent was marked every minute by the greater size of the treos and timber it boro aloug, and by and by the roost painful feelings were excited by the appearance of the planks and roofs of chalets whirling down In its waves, which boiled and chafed in huge masses of water resembling liquid mortar.

" The sound of the huge boulders which it (creed along, as they struck the >iocky bottom, literally shook tlio ground, -and filled (lie air,, like growling thunder j and tho long reverberations of the avalanches mingling wilh the horrid tumult, the crash of trees and timber, and the billing of the toppling waters of river and cataract, formed an nwful chord's. The anxious faces of tbe villagers but too well revealed the .amount 'of the destruction that was taking placet as surrounding their priest, who stood with uncovered head beneath the teeming clouds, they gazed from tho bridges in hopoleii denpafr at tbe torrent below. At the Hotel do Londres, strenuous efforts were made to preserve ■ tbe bridge, and large beam'! of wood, md trees snipped of their branches, were conveyed with gieat labour, and placed so that one end was fixed under the bridge, and the other weighed down by large stones and balks of timber, rested on th 0 ground j but, in npilo of this eccentric engineering, it wnt plain to those who watched the progress of the flood, that the erection could not long withstand the furious tide that beat against its buttrenei. Before' eleven o'clock the waters hqd

rushed into the hotel garden, and in « few moments, after the stone buttrestcs 'and ' foundations wore, lapped and overthrown, and with it tremendou oraih down came tbe bridge Into the Arvo, which, whirling it round and round like a straw, speedily hurried it out of sight.

" On walking by the mountain side, above the valley, the appearance of the torrent was frightful. Enormous pine-trees, nsh, and beeches of great bulk, were to he seen struggling lo rise out ol the r»ce, pnd lifting their dark routs and branches for an instant, but to be whelmed again by the stream, the course of which was marked everywhere by ruined mills and half drownod chalets. Women, gathered on the hill side, stood winning their bands and weeping as they looked on their submerged homes, their friendly roofs jutt peeping dliotc the wutcr; or, with their husbands and children, bore their bumble boutchold goods to some securer elevation.

All the population agreed in saying thst they hud nuver hemd of or fccn such a deluge before. The ■mall millers whose houses stood by the road side, wero of course tlio great sufferers. In every caso their dwellings wcie destroyed, and their property carried away j and it was melancholy to «ca some of those great stout fellnws crying like kliildren ns they beheld the fruits of jears of industry and toil swallowed up in an instant for ever."

It is olio reported thai many lives were lott. A subscription had been raised (or the relief of the sufferers.