MANY DIE OF COLD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 588, 14 February 1929, Page 9

MANY DIE OF COLD

Influenza and Pneumonia Harry Frozen Countries TERRIBLE CONDITIONS REPORTED (United P.A.—By Telegraph Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) * Received Noon, PARIS, Wednesday. STATISTICS collected throughout Europe show that the deaths due to the so-called “ice-age winter” are approaching 20,000. There have at the least been 2,500 deaths from influenza and pneumonia in France alone; several hundred deaths from, drowning and in shipwrecks; also more than 100 persons are reported to have been frozen to death in Europe.

To-day’s reports show little abatement of the freezing. Nancy registered 54 degrees of frost. The River Meurtlie is frozen. A message from Warsaw states that forest guards near Lublin found an entire band of gipsies comprising 34 men, women and children frozen io death. TWO DISASTERS IN GERMANY The temperature in parts of Rumania is 45 degrees below zero, and entire families have been frozen to death in that country. Dispatches from Berlin state that the intense cold in Germany was responsible for two disasters. At Stuttgart an express train had to be slowed down owing to the freezing of the radiator. The driver of a following express did not see the signals through the lrost-covered windows of his engine and his train crashed into the first one. Three persons were killed and 17 were injured. An attempt to thaw some frozen calcium carbide in an acetylene gas factory at Barmen led to an explosion. Three people were killed and 20 were seriously injured. The factory was demolished. The Rhine, Mosel and Ruhr Rivers are frozen over considerable distances. At Frankfurt the lowest temperature for a century was recorded. A man who had been blinded in the war was found frozen to death at Duisberg. His dog was keeping watch beside the body and would not allow anyone to approach. Messages from Sofia, Bulgaria, say the towns of Varna and Burgas are ice-bound. People are skating along the coast for the first time since 1849.

At Paris 26 degrees of frost were registered. This was the lowest, with three exceptions, fox* 55 years. The Prefect of Police in the French capital has had braziers installed at sheltered corners in the principal streets. Many trains have been delayed owing to points and engine tubes being frozen. There have been heavy falls of snow in many places in France, even at Marseilles and at Cannes. The famous Chartreuse Monastery, near Grenoble, is snowed up and isolated. There were 48 degrees of frost at Belfort.

snow-ploughs and an engine of 120 tons.

At Penygroes, near Carnarvon, a passenger train was snowed up throughout Monday night. Frozen points delayed rail traffic in many parts of the country. Road traffic is much more seriously disorganised. The inhabitants state that conditions near Stranraer are even worse than during the great blizzard of 1895. Buses and about 100 motor-cars are snowed up in the neighbourhood. In South Wales, many motor-bus services have also been suspended, and numerous accidents due to skids on the ice-bound roads occurred yesterday, while scores of vehicles are abandoned in snowdrifts. Severe frosts continued to-day in the British Isles, the thermometer readings being even lower than yesterday. The coldest place appears to be Ross-on-Wye, in Herefordshire, where the thermometer showed a ground temperature of six degrees below zero Fahrenheit, or 38 degrees of frost. Ice has begun to form on the Thames in the higher reaches. Other rivers are also becoming frozen, while canals, lakes and ponds are generally ice-bound. Householders are finding their chief discomfort in the freezing of the waterpipes. This was the subject of a general complaint to-day all over London. The Metropolitan Water Board is fixing stand pipes in the streets and housewives come with buckets and kettles and obtain water from the main. Thousands of frozen pipes are bursting and causing damage. STRANGE SCENE AT FIRE !CE FALLS FROM HOSES BLAZE AT PICCADILLY (Australian and N.Z. Press Associationj Reed. 6.55 a.m. LONDON, Wednesday. There were strange scenes at Piccadilly from midnight to dawn, when 20 fire engines and 130 firemen were fighting a fire in the Trocadero Restaurant. The firemen’s uniforms were frozen stiff, huge icicles formed on the face of the building and the 70ft watertowers used to combat the flames, the water freezing as it left the hoses fell on the fire in hailstones.

The damage from the fire was confined to the upper storey of the restaurant, though there was much destruction by water.