VOLCANIC OUTBURST.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 418, 17 May 1902, Page 2

VOLCANIC OUTBURST.

PART OF ST. VINCENT ENVELOPED IN MASS OF FIRE. BALLS OK COLORED FIR t ISSUING FROM CRATER, A FURTHER CALAMITY FEARED BRITISH URGED TO ABANDON ST. VINCENT, HELP FOR THE DISTRESSED, By telegraph—Press AssociationCopyright. LONDON, May lfi. At the request of the Lord Mayor of London, Mr Chamberlain has opened a fund in aid of the sufferers at Saint Vincent. Messrs Vanderbilt, Gould, and other millionaires are sending their yachts with provisions to St. Vincent. The Le Temps, a newspaper published in Paris, states that- one hundred thousand people at Martinique are in need of help. The vote passed by the United States ! 'ongress includes provision towards helping the s-ufferers at St. Vincent.... The Canadian Parliament nas voted a sum of fifty thousand dollars for the Martinique and St, Vincent sufferers’ relief fund.

The whole of the northern part of St. Vincent is enveloped in a mass of travelling fire, and it is impossible to reach the area affected, by land or by sea.

The volcano itself cannot he seen. Immense balls of colored fire have been issuing from the crater.

• .r remarkable fact in connection with flie Martinique outbreak is Dial the

town clock was found intact. It had stopped at fifty minutes past seven o’clock on the evening of the day 'on which the diaster occurred.

It is believed that Behanzen, the exKing of Dahomey, is among the viet.ms of the Martinique disaster. The military are guarding tlw, town rf St. Pierre, in order to deter pirates visiting the place from the neignooring islands.

Three luminous points on the lower slopes of Mount Pelee presage a further calamity.

Forty thousand pounds worth of jewellrv were recovered from the St. Pierre Bank. Five Creoles and a white man have been arrested with their pockets full of coins and jewellery, stolen from the dead. The Colonial Secretary of Jamaica, thinks Great Britain should depott the I opulation of St. Vincent and abandon the island.

CONTRIBUTIONS FOR RELIEF, SEA TRANSFORMED INTO BOILING CAULDRON. WATER POLLUTED BY LAVA. THOUSANDS OF BODIES CREMATED. COUNTLESS BODIES FLOATING IN SEA. A MURDERER’S ESCAPE. RESCUED FROM FIRE HE FLEES TO THE WOODS. uONDON, May 16. In the House of Commons, Mr Balfour gratefully acknowledged President Roosevelt’s offer of a share of the work of aiding and rescuing victims at St. Vincent. He stated that the Government of the Windward Isles had been authorised to expend whatever was necessary in relief The Bank of England lias subscribed a thousand pounds to the St, Vincent fund, the King four hundred, the London Corporation • five hundred and seventy-five. NEW YORK, May 16’. The Soufriere eruption was vastly in a" most extensive lake at the summit, which has disappeared, The sea in the vicinity has been transformed into a boiling cauldron. Lava polluted the streams, making the water undrinkable, Many are dying from i hirst and starvation.

Countless bodies are floating in the sea.

It is impossible to approach within eight miles of Soufriere. St. Vincent is covered with a peculiar mist of noxious vapours, causing much illness. There is a terrible stench in the Carib country, where a tribe have been annihilated.

Great darkness prevails- on the Island of St. Kitts, though the extinct volcano there is quiescent.

The Governor of Martinique and family, and a large number of other residents at St. Pierre, were attending a thanksgiving service in the Cathedral when they were overwhelmed. Huge pyres, fed with petroleum of tar, have been utilised for cremating thousands of dead bodies.

Men employed searching among the cinders stepped upon what appears to be a pillar of stone. The find is a charred corpse. A negro murderer imprisoned underground escaped the poisonous gases and flames. When rescued, after four days, he fled to the woods.

The troops have received orders to shoot all robbers dead.