FRESH FLOODS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 March 1930, Page 5

FRESH FLOODS

ENORMOUS DAMAGE DONE.

HEAVY LOSS OF LIFE

[United Press Association—By Electric

Telegraph.—Copyright.]

(Received this day at 11 a.m.) PARIS, : .March 5

The “Evening News” correspondent states every hour brings fresh news ot tbe flood disaster. I lie death roll is now believed to lie at lest lour huurder, including scores of farmers’ families drowned in the districts inundated many feet, by the three rivers Tran, Orb and Herault bursting banks and .cutting off from tbe world the towns Montaubau, Bqsiors and Moissne, and isolating hundreds of villages. Panic stricken refugees from Aloissac arriving at Toulouse relate terrible stories of the midnight inundation trapping hundreds asleep. Scores were trampled to dentil, mothers and terror stricken children fighting to escape.

Thirty houses in one street' alone were swept away by a wall of water, and others collapsed burying the occupants.

It is reported that roads are flooded to a depth of forty-five feet. Relief is impossible owing to the laVr of boats, nlthogethcr hundreds were seen on roofs calling for help. Thousands of cattle have been drownned.

IMMENSE DAMAGE DONE,

(Received this dav at 12 noon). PARIS. (March 5

It is officially announced 1 that.a hundred and fifty are dead and three thousand homeless in Moisseac. Eighty per cent, of the houses in Tarn and Garonne valley were destroyed. As a climax the Mount Auban floods dam burst and a torrent, ten feet deep, swept Moisseac and carried off fifty houses and then spread over the Garonne valley forty miles. It is not known how many of Moisseac-’s nine thousand inhabitants perished. 500 families are homeless in Castres. Rafts had to he improvised for patients and nurses from Saitquen hospital. One fifth of France’s richest vineyards have ‘been destroyed.