FLOOD IN FRANCE.

Western Star, 10 April 1934, Page 3

FLOOD IN FRANCE.

NINE MEN DROWNED,

POWER STATION TRAGEDY.

The bursting of the main conduit of an unfinished hydro-electric power station in the Orbey Valley, among the Vosges Mountains, in France, last month, caused the deaths of nine men and threatened the whole of the valley and the town of Colmar with flooding. The villages and farms in the valley were hurriedly evacuated. The new power station is between the Lac Blanc and the Lac Noir, neai the old Franco-German frontier in the upper levels of the Vosges. The Lac Blanc lies an altitude of 3500 feet; the Lac Noir, 500 feet lower, and only half as large as the Lac Blanc—which has an area of over 60 acres—is separated from it by a natural wall of volcanic rock.

To obtain electrical energy from the waters of the Lac Blanc conduits bad been pierced through the rock to the Lac Noir, and turbo-electric generators were installed in a power station built between the two lakes. The plan wa9 to allow the water of the upper lake to flow to the lower lake in the daytime, driving the turbines and supplying current for the industrial area of Colmar during the “peak” hours when the factories were working. The,, water would be pumped back into the upper lake at night, when the power required to drive the pumps would lie much cheaper than that supplied in the daytime. The difference in the day and night prices of current would make a profit for the station.

M. Wohlgeroth, the manager of the power station, M. Salle, the chief engineer, M, Roth, tho statjon foreman, two French mechanics, and four Swiss mechanics—who were working as a night shift—were in the underground turbine room when tho main conduit burst without warning. The turbine room wa3 flooded at once and these nine men wore drowned.

Part of the power station collapsed, and M. Roth's mother and sister, who were in an upper room, were rescued with difficulty. Meanwhile, the water from Lae Blanc was pouring through the burst conduit into Lac Noir, which soon began to overflow. Its level rose at an alarming rate, and was 45 feet above normal the next morning.

As soon as news of the accident reached Colmar soldiers and firemen were sent to the' lakes in lorries; their journey was made difficult by snow on the roads. At 5 a.m. the Prefect of the Department ordered the valley to be evacuated, because it was feared that a dam at the lower end of the Lac Noir would burst under tho strain. The darn hold, and military engineers succeeded in strengthening it and in opening a sluice which relieved the pressure.