THREATENED DESTRUCTION BY AN AVALANCHE.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 4 June 1901, Page 3

THREATENED DESTRUCTION BY AN AVALANCHE.

(Pee s.s, Biebba at Auckland.)

San Francisco, May 9,

It is reported from Vancouver that Slocum, the mining town of Sandon, which was last year partially wiped out by fire, was on May 3rd again the scone of terror and impending destruction. A snow slide on the mountain at the back of the town began to move early in the evening, and about midnight crashed into a small plateau just above the city. Trees and blocks had been swept before the slide, and it was expected tho town would be carried into tho gulch. The slide blocked tho river, which Hows through tho town. Crowds flocked up the steep hillsides, and at three o’clock the patients wore removed from the hospitals, and carried nearly a thousand foot up to tho snow line. The river began to rise above tho debris, and below dwindled to a rivulet. The electric light plant, operated by tho water-power, became useless, as the water backed behind the slide until it was forty feet deep. A crash was momentarily expected and awaited with terror.! Instead the water soaked through tho lower portion of the slide, and water and molting snow with all accumulatek debris, were swept on down the river, and tho town and inhabitants escaped injury.