A. Dreadful Visitation.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 54, 5 February 1885, Page 4

A. Dreadful Visitation.

-• — -. — A correspondent of the Viena Neve Frtie Press* gives the following account of the recent disaster at Catania:— "At first heavy black cloud soverspread Mount Etna, and the sea, already rough, broke into a fury as if lashed by invisible fiends. A : quarter of an hour later it began to ! pour m such torrents that you could , not see a yard before you. The ' wind howled dismally, and swept ' away everything before it. It was a terrible time, making the most courageous quake, while the women joined m prayer for those exposed to the storm m the open fields. Yet none realised what that fearful day would bring to pass. Hardly had the hurricane began to abate ere a

messenger reached the Prefecture with the appalling tidings that the neighbouring villages of Cibal? Borgo, Guardia, and Ognissa had been completely destroyed ; hundreds of the inhabitants were buried under the fallen honses, and the fields, vineyards, and chestnut wood on the surrounding hills had been laid waste. It was soon discovered that these accounts contained but a ft eble portion of the truth. Many beautiful country houses lay m ruins ; the sight of the villages themselves was indicated only by heaps of bricks and rubbish ; not a single dwelling had been spared. From the debris issued the shrieks and cries of those who had been buried alive. The survivors set about the work of salvage with superhuman energy, and their efforts were m a large number of cases crowned with success. . . . . The material damage done amounts to 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 lire. Within the last two years Italy has been visited by terrible calamities. First came the inundations, then the earchquake at Cassamicciola, then the cholera, and .now the catastrophe at Catania. 1 '