TERRIFIC STORM AND EARTHQUAKE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1400, 25 January 1873, Page 2

TERRIFIC STORM AND EARTHQUAKE.

The London -Times of the Bth of November has the following account of the ' hurricane in Sicily, which; destroyed the town of Palazzuolo:— "There has been no instance of such calamity within the memory of living man. No earthquake ever caused so much destruction. There are houses 1 uined ; houses fallen to the very ground; walls cleft from end to end ; walls hanging outward so as to rest on adjoining houses. There are .roofs wholly swept away 5 sunken balconies torn from, their places,; windows and shutters either entirely carried off, or hanging loose from the walls'; lamp-posts forced from their sockets ; uprooted trees. And this is all one.sees along the north-east side of the town. Not one house . remains in which the whole roof and windows do not require thorough, repairs. The Btreets are a. mass of fragments and rubbish. The incidents of the disaster are so strange as to be almost incredible. There was a store with twenty-five hectolitres, of wheat, of which hot a trace is anywhere to be seen. The books of excise and of the land and registry offices have vanished, and only their torn leaves have been found here and there at great distances. In_one house all the jropper 'kitchen utensils were T)l6wn* through the roof. In another, benches and heavy cheats flew through the .windows. The iron bars on the balcony are to'be seen curled up one way, and those of another twisted up another way. There is a pillar of a palace! which has been moved forward one foot without breaking, and stands up isolated all in one piece. There is the wall of aiother palace which has fallen back more tiian 3ft without a crack. Here, is a. bew of one house which has thrust itselrinto another house. There is the half of a bedstead, the other half of which lies no one knows, where. All the tiles, of one building are huddled together in one spot. One roof ia ; crushed and broken up as small as if it had been' pounded. The . rafters of another building are all bare, > the sides haying flown no one can see . where! 'In a stable on the bare 1 |roun(£ . men arg Ja^ing'the b' odies one bjr^pne gg I they are bepg dujgyout; Sfost 'c-f thpjfl ■ are in their nightdresses, having been ! crushed as they were quietly sleeping. Their features and forms are so dia- , figured that no one can look at them ; without shuddering. Their nostrils, ears, ■ and mouth are stopped with earth and ! white dusty which has everywhere pierced , through the skin. Here is the body of a 1 man holding close to his heart a child — probably his own child— the skulls of both • shattered. There are two young men in , each others' arras— probably brothers — , the chests and backs of both crushed. ■ Near them is another youth Qovered with blood. He was a clerk in a Government dflice. H*e hs& his 1 eyeglass still «tugk?i4 his right eye, and was probably reading . or writing when struck, There' are some , disfigured past recognition} others that asem unhurt, and look as if they were sleeping. Without exaggeration, one* - third of the town is dismantled, and more ' than 3000 families literaUy' without a home. Above 100 more" have only one . little corner of what wa3 once their home , to shelter them. The dead number 32, . and the seriously hurt about half a score , besides. ; -■-