Yawning Chasms.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 47, 17 June 1914, Page 5

Yawning Chasms.

THUNDERSTORM IN PARIS. A TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright] [United Press Association.] Paris, June 16. The worst thunderstorm in fifty years has occurred. Theree was a torrential downpour for two and a-halx hours. Several sewers burst. A subsidence caused a hole 160 square yards by forty feet deep in the Place St. Philippe.

At Duroule, a crowd was standing under an awning. Fifteen were whirled away in the flood and momentarily engulfed. Five were drowned. Yawning gaps, ten feet across, appeared in many of the roads, which collapsed into the excavations for the electric underground railway, some 50ft deep. Into one of these a motorbus fell, killing a number of passengers. Two taxi-cabs fell Thirty Feet into a Hole, Three Persons being Killed. Several buildings collapsed. Many cellars were flooded. The gas mains exploded, blowing up the pavement. The electricity failed on the underground railway in the Place Concorde. The passengers were in a state of panic. A similar panic occurred in the street, where there was a wild rush to escape from the crumbling earth. Even the police fled. The Damage in Paris amounts to at Least Half a Million.

The storm struck a building in course of construction at Choisy ■ le Roi, where of twenty masons two were killed ansd eight seriously injured. It is believed that thirty may be found beneath the debris of the Metropolitan Railway, which collapsed in various places. FOUR BODIES RECOVERED. KILLED BY LIGHTNING IN A CHURCH. (Received 9.20 a.m.) Paris, June 16. Four bodies have been recovered. Lightning struck a suburban church, killing four and injuring several. The prefect of police opines that the subsidence was due to over-congestion of tram traffic.

TOTAL OF TWENTY FATALITIES. TWO INCHES OF RAIN IN 35 MINUTES. APPEARANCE OF A BIG HOLE. (Received 10.25 a.m.) Paris, June 16. Twenty fatalities are reported. Two inches of rain fell in 35 minutes. A hole 60ft. by 10ft. suddenly appeared under the tramway at Porte Glignamcourt to-day.