Fearful Storm in Austria.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 1459, 19 September 1885, Page 3

Fearful Stor m m Austria.

A fearful hurricane has been raging over Bukowina and Galicia, musing serious lo*s of life and immense destruction of property. As msuiy as right persons were killed hy lightning at Viss'rz alone. In many districts the crop has been completely destroyed l>y hail, and whole townships have heen laid waste. Many of the fine forests of. BukowinS and Galieia have al*o sustained considerable ilamnge, reports from the region* ovur which the storm passod stating that upwards of 10,000. oaks ami maples h:iye been .-uprooted; . During the heigh i of the hurricane a fire, sup]«osed to have been caused. by lii>htnincr, broke out at Honwlenka, m Galicirt, a town of somo 8000 or 9000 inhaliitantß, and aid- d by the high \vin<l, spread with such rapidity that beforo it could be extinguished 600 houses w«re reduced to ashes, and the people whom they had sheltered, to the number of; 5000, rendered homeless. The ÜBforlunnte.*, who are mainly Jews of the very poorest class, are now without shelter of any kind' and are almost entirely without food. Two of the inhabitants were l.iirnt to death, and many children are missing. Subscriptions m aid of the sufferers h:\ve already been opened liy most of the newspapers* In the North Hungarian village of Cosma the lightning struck the church just as mass was being performed. Of the congregation . present two young women were killed and thirty-two other persons stunned and more or less severely injured. Floods and thunderstorms continue <o be reported from Bohemia, whore the village of Zechov has been nearly destroyed, several bridges and houses being >wept away by the inundations.