THE FLOOD IN CHINA. Thousands of Lives Lost and Thousands Starving to Death.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 121, 26 September 1885, Page 4

THE FLOOD IN CHINA. Thousands of Lives Lost and Thousands Starving to Death.

Details of the great destruction, caused in Canton, China, and its vicinity, by the recent great rainstorm there, have been re« ceived, The flood has been the most serious which has visited Canton in thirty years. More than ten thousand persona lost their lives, and a far greater number are left in a starving condition. Entire villages were engulfed, and rice and silk crops in that vicinity were almost ruined. The price has been raised 18 pei cent, in consequence of the loss of the crop. The rain fell in the latter part of June, filling and overflowing many rivera. The streets of Canton were flooded for over a week. At Seani the water broke through the city wall, and it is reported that several thous and people were drowned in thai place. The embankments of the river were broken in numerous places and the water swept across the surrounding country, carrying everything before it. A foreigner, who was an eyewitness of the scenes of devastation, reports that one night the boat he occupied was anchored near a bamboo grove and by morning the water had risen to the tops of the bamboos. At other points it rose as high as forty feet during the night time. The inhabitants fled from the villages and camped on the hillsides. At Run, in a market place situated near an embankment on one of the streams connected with the river which brings w.iter from the North and West riverß, a majority of the inhabitants were drowned by the water breaking through the embank ment. Some escaped to a piece of rising ground in the neighbourhood, but the water continued to rise, and gradually overtopped the elevation, drowning those who stopped upon it. Seventeen Chinese graduates in Canton, hearing of the distress and suffer ing prevalent in their native took passage on the boat, witlf the view of proceeding home to render what assistance they could, but on the way the boat was capsized and all were drowned In some places parents tied their children on high branches of trees, while they instituted measures for their general safety. The trees were washed up by the roots, and tb« heart-rending cries of the children were silenced by the surging water.

The Body of » Bride. dressed in her bridal robes, was found floating in the river at Canton. A large tub was aleo seen. It was picked up and found to contain a boy and girl, and with them was found a paper stating their names and the day and hour of their birth. Their parents had instituted this means to save the lives of their offspring. The writer adds that the suffering which thousands are enduring is heartrending parents re plying with tears in their eyes to their children's request for food that they have none. The people are obliged to use the filthiest water, and this, added to the diseases which wil) ensue upon the subsidence of the water, will greatly aggravate the horrorß of the situation. Meantime all that is being done by the inhabitants to abate their misery is the beating of gongs, the burning of incense and the howling of prayers to idols.