CLOUD-BURST.

Waikato Times, Issue 12188, 25 September 1911, Page 5

CLOUD-BURST.

♦ CATASTROPHE IN ITALY.

DEATH AND DAMAGE

A TERRIBLE VISITATION

PALACES COLLAPSE

RIVERS OF MUD

(Per Press Association.—Copyright.)

(Received Sept. 24, 5.5 p.m.)

ROME, Sept. 23. A violent storm, accompanied by torrential rains, is reported from the Naples district.

Severe inundations have occurred, and numerous buildings in Resina (a town built at the foot of Vesuvius on the site of ancient Herculaneum) were swept away. Six bodies have been recovered, and many are missing. Fifty people are reported to have perished.

Rivers of mud are flowing down the slopes of Vesuvius, and many families are imprisoned in their homes. Rescue parties have le?t Naples. The eruption of Mount Etna is diminishing in force with remarkable rapidity.

The cloudburst has caused incalculable damage in the neighborhood of Vesuvius. Resina is engulfed in mud, which reaches the first floors of the various buildings. An impetuous torrent rushed down the mountain side, bearing huge boulders upon its waters which shattered houses in its course. Women and children were transfixed by the api'ailing sight, and made no effort to escape. Many 'bodies were swept towards the sea, 20 being recovered. Several palaces belonging to the Neapolitan nobility at Torre del Greco (another town at the base of \ esuvQus and seven miles from Naples, which has bean repeatedly destroyed by eruptions) collapsed, burying the occupants beneath the ruins.

The disaster is popularly 'attributed to the failure of the miracle of liquefaction cf the blood of St. Januarius.

Tht hurricane which accompanied the cloudburst has lasted 24 hours, and still continues.

Full details of the catastrophe are lacking owing to the interruption of communication.

Huge deposits of volcanic ashes from the slopes of Vesuvius were washed into the raging torrents, despite the vast concrete constructions designed to hold them back. Mud avalanches have begun a devastatingdescent of the mountain, and have submerged cultivated fields, uprooted trees, and deluged the low-lying villages and towns at the foot of Vesuvius. The destruction was especially extensive at Torre "del Greco, where the torrent of mud reached the second flooi of the buildings, and washed away the railway line.

WIDESPREAD DARKNESS

TRAINS STOPPED

100 VILLAGES CUT OFF

ROME, Sept. 23

Other villages were buried in the slough to a depth of 6ft., a/nd the terrar of the situation was .added to by widespread darkness.

Scores of houses collapsed and in many cases the terrified inhabitants were unable to escape before their cottages were engulpbed, or battered to pieces by the giant boulders carried by the torrents from the mountain sides, together with trees and the carcases of animals.

The 20 corpses recovered belonging to two families.

A hundred villages are still cut off from assistance, and the inhabitants are in danger of perishing.

The authorities in Naples have sent numbers of soldiers and firemen to the rescue of the stricken people, but they are exieriencing difficulty in reaching, the. centre of the disaster. Great damage lias been caused by floods in Naples, and the trains have had to be stopped. Cloudbursts also occurred at Volterra and Leghorn.

Many workmen in Rome were in danger of drowning liy the sudden flooding of basements in the city. Water to the depth of three or four feet flooded streets.

Welsh Church.

* (Per Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, Sept. 22. Lord Hugh Cecil has inaugurated the Welsh National campaign against Disestablishment. He declared that the case was one for the readjustment of the relations between church and State, not for their abolition. Mr Joynson Hicks, M.P., said that the attack on the Church came from Radicalism, not from God-fearing Nonconformity.