TERRIBLE LANDSLIP IN INDIA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 236, 26 November 1880, Page 4

TERRIBLE LANDSLIP IN INDIA.

A couple of months ago our cable news reported a fatal landslip at Naini Tal. the most popular sanitarium in India. From the Pioneer Mail we gather the following particulars of the catastrophe. A correspondent writing frora the scene of the disaster says : — As I write, these few sad lines, the "whole of Naini Tal is thrilling with horror : its collective heart throbs with sorrow and sympathy. A catastrophe —terrible in its suddenness, awful in its destructiveness, deplorable in the loss of life it has occasioned— has befallen the place, leaving death, ruin, and suffering behind it. The following is a brief resume, so far as data are available, of the leading circumstances connected with this most lamentable occurrence. Rain, which bad been threatening for some time, began to fall heavily on the evening of Thursday, the 16th inst. Showers of more or less severity had foreshadowed what tbe weatberwise believed to be the final burst ofthe monsoon ; but it- was not till the evening of Thursday that the downpour became perceptibly heavy and persistent. Friday passed; the night came and went ; Saturday dawned, but still the sky was leaden, mists hung thickly over crag and mountain, and the rain poured steadily on in uninterrupted flow. Early on Saturday morn the guage showed tha. the fall had aggregated 25 inches in the forty hours of its coniiuuance. The effect of this enormouß mass of rain fal ing down on the confined area of the settlement, which is simply a basin formed by a circle of more or less precipitous hills, with the lake in their oentre at the foot, was apparent to the most casual observer. * * * * * Here and there masses of loose earth and stones barred the path; evidences — if there had been but time and opportunity to estimate them • aright — of the precarious condition of that part ofthe hillside which waseventuallythe scene of the tragedy. It was notorious that a large portion of this hill, from the site of the old Government House downwards, was unsafe ; and threatening enough to the prescient eye did the looming mass appear from below. All this, with the monotonous beat of the rain and the sighing of the wind; with dripping foliage, bedraggledtrees, and ruined gardens, with the distant roar of rushing water, with a darkness as of night caused by the heavy clouds that lay like a pall upon the mountains, formed a scene sufficiently dispiriting, and cast an unusual gloom over the station. On Saturday afternoon rumours of the dangerous stale of tbe Victoria Hotel were noised abroad. This botel, one of the largest in Naini Tal, is a huge, irregular mass of buildings picturesquely situated on tbe lowest spur of the northern range of local hills. A winding path of 100 to 150 yards in length leads down by a gentle descent to the level surface, which constitutes what may be called the public grounds of Naini Tal; the cricket and polo-ground, with the largeEmporiuna known as 'Bell's shop,' on the north side of it, and the range of the Assembly Rooms on tbe east. Between the t otel and the shop is an open space of considerable extent; used for various purposes, luckily unbuilt on at tbe time, with tbe garden in which were situated the volunteers' orderly room and the ladies' tennis courts. Such then was the pos-i tion of affairs. , Above, the frowning hill-side with the hotel nestling under its

•i ,. » » ■ ■ * i ■ i _ i _■ shelter; then the open space, the garden, the sbop, the cricket ground snd the Assembly Rooms in one continuous line down to the level of the lake. The thre>e great self-contained Works were thus in comparative proximity, while in a willow grove close by there stood, on the very margin of tbe lake, an ancient Hindu temple much resorted to by the people of these parts. Peaceful enough, even in this dull, dark morning, must the scene have been : little thought those who passed and repassed the familiar places tbat deadly peril was close at hand. The rumours as to the dangerous condition of the hotel were found to rest oo a basis of solid fact. A landslip, slight in itself but ominous of what might follow, had occurred in tbe spur behind at about 10 o'clock in the morning, resulting in the collapse of the whole upper line.of out-houses aod of a portion of the back premises. The alarm was at once t-iven, ond the visitors who had been staying at tbe hotel lost no time io leaving it, and taking shelter elsewhere. The plaoe was soon empty; but the main building remained standing, apparently uninjured, and tbe appearance of the hill behind was not Bueh as to excite any immediate apprehension. Tbe energies of the authcrities were ot once directed to tbe removal of, thp debris, aod the extrication of the injured und the dead. Although tbe slip had not been of any great extent (being partial, and confioed to the lower spur of the hill), it was found lhat some 20 to 30 natives connected with the hotel, and one European child, bad been buried in the ruins. A.t one o'clock all seemed well. The working party were busy at tbeir taEk, at the bottom of the precipitous ascent which overhung the hotel ; the dead were being carried off, and the wounded cared for by Mr Taylor and biß helpers; the rain poured on monotonously and heavily. About haif-pßst one (accounts diff r as to the exact time, but this is a close approximation), Naini Tal was startled .by a sudden and sullen roar, louder than the simultaneous crash of heavy guns, followed by a prolonged rumbling as of distant thunder, aod then by an ominous silenoe. Vast clouds of dust rose heavenwards through tbe murky atmosphere, enveloping in one dense shroud the tract of ground from the hotel to the shop .' and onwards to the Assembly Rooms and the lake. The whole place shook as though an earthquake had passed over it, the waters of the lake rose in a moment far above their usual limit, and swept in a massive wave towards the weir. Then all was still. Everyone wondered what had happened. Only when the dust ahd smoke had cleared away was the awful nature of the catastrophe revealed in its bide, lis reality ; and then it became apparent that the whole hillside, from far up the steep ascent down to the very borders of the hotel, had descended bodily, avalanchelike, on the space below, sweeping away, like a hous. of cards, the cumbrous structure of the botel— hurling a vast mass of eartb, rocks, and boulders through the intervening treot on^ to the doomed shop, which, collapsing under tbe terrific violence of the shock, was thrown violently forward in the direction of the Assembly Rooms, and razing to the ground in a moment the long line of buildings which fronts the lake and constitutes tbe Assembly Rooms. In far less lime iban it takes to tell it, all was over, and there only remained a scene of ruin and devastation that might well haye appalled the stoutest heart. From the top of

the lower spur, under which had stood a minute before the Victoria Hotel, to the edge of the cricket ground, nothing wbs to bo seen but a vast expanse of loose earth, beneath which lay buried hotel and garden, road and or-derly-room. It was as if Borne giant hand had dropped balf a mountain over the spot, blotting out in a moment every feature of the scene, filling np the hollows, ahd reducing to one dead sloping level all that ley between. Deep down beneath tbe treacherous eartb, which thus bid from view all that had once existed, lay the brave band who bad been busied in tbe noble tesk of succouring the wounded. Not a vestige of them was to be seen — only the lone hillside, silent and daik. Meanwhile, the space occupied in happier times by the cricket and polo-grounds presented a strange contrast to tbe gentle sweep above. Towards the pavilion and tennis courts it was intact, save for the streams of water that poured ovtr it irom every direction; but at the other side it was eiroply an enormous mound, of vast extent and varying height, a tangled mass of broken walls and torn roofs, of fractured beams and ruined masonry, of fallen trees and heaped op earth, mixed, in horrible confusion, with the spoils of the shop and the wreck of the orderly-room. Here might be seen rol's of cloth and' yarda of silk, witb rugs, and hats end boots io dozens; there, rifles, bayonets, and ramrods scattered broadcast among tbe debris. At one corner of the heap a bundle of lockinp-2lasses caught the writer's eye, some cf tbem still intact; ut another the cruehed remains of what, under cunning ban dp, was to have become a lady's dress. Saddest of all and most horrible was the spectacle of the few corpses that were visible among ihe rump, relics of what so short a lime before bad been living men ful! of life and hope. These, however, were few and far between: the ruined heaps, piled yards high above the ground, mercifully concealed most of the secrets of the dead. Never was havoc more suddpn, more awful, or more complete. Without a moment's warning (so far as can be ascertained), without a premonitory i umbje to awaken suepioioo, down came, with one fell swoop, tbe euormous. landslip, buryiog in its deadly embrace the hotel and the gallant band behind) eogulphibg road and garden,; orderly-room and shop,' Assembly Rooms and Library, with almost every living soul that "they contained. The sergeant instructor, busy at his volunteer returns, wes never seen again; of thepeople fu (he shops, all save four (tbree of tbem women; ihey all escaped, wonderful to narrate) were in a moment swept away. 0/ tbose in the Assembly Rooms not o vestige remained. The, moment it became known that the catastrophe had occurred, people hurried in from all directions to the scene, and strenuous efforts were matfe to remove the vast heaps of debris which represented ell that was left of Bell's shop ond the Assembly Rcoms If was in vain at this time to attempt to extricate the remains of the working party, who lay fathoms deep under the enormous maps of earth and shale which the lendslip had precipitated in the very spot where they last had stood; but it was hoped tbat something could be done amid the ruins on the cricket ground, and every possible effort was made. Working parties were at onoe formed, and some little way made in the removal of the heavier beams and-stonee. Progress, however, was disheartening? slow, for the rain fell thick and heavy, and darkness came od apaoe. The engineering and medical officers too were of opioion, after oarefully examining the scene, that there ! was not tho remotest chance of survival on the part of any who lay entombed beneath the ruins. Nevertheless, as > long as light lasted there were not wenting willing hearts and strong hands to do what could be dooe; and only when ; the shades of night fell drearily over the awful scene of havoo and death was the place finally deserted. Sobn darkness overspread it like a. shroud, and jail was as silent as th 1 © g^five,' s&Ve for ; the sighing of the wind, the .eating of Ithe rain, and the occasional peal of distant thunder. Language fails to depict tbe awful desolation of the i scene. It Was hardly possible to {realise that this heap of ruins and that | deadly expanse of earth concealed, such I dread eecrets, and tf* ere all that rejmained of tbe once crowded hotel, the j favorite shop, the well-known Assembly Roomß. A sadder soene I never jsaw — so sad a one 1 hope never to see Ugain. It was worse surely than a I battle-field, for there the dead at least jdie knowingly, while here the angel of 'death came down with awful unexpectedness of summons and terrible suddenness of fate. This loads me to the saddest part of my sad story — the mortality occasioned by this fearful catastrophe. The deaths that occurred at the first and smaller landslip are variously estimated ; but so far as canbe ascertained, tbey did not exceed thirty in number, all natives, with the exception of the one European .child." It was when the second and mightier slip took place, when the whole hillside came tumbling down, that the loss of life became so great. No one pan tell as yet how many "perished in that awful hour ; but. the number cannot well be voder, and is probably over, a hundred souls.