LATER PARTICULARS. A TERRIBLE WORK. INTERRING THE DEAD. 4,000 Bodies Recovered. INTERMENTS BY THE HUNDRED. AWFUL LOSS OF LIFE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 375, 8 June 1889, Page 5

LATER PARTICULARS. A TERRIBLE WORK. INTERRING THE DEAD. 4,000 Bodies Recovered. INTERMENTS BY THE HUNDRED. AWFUL LOSS OF LIFE.

New Yokk, Juno 5. Search patties aie still engaged in the recoveiy of the bodies of those who were drowned in the floods at Johnstown, and up till the present lime four thousand corpses have been recovered. A regiment of soldiers which was despatched fiom New York to render assistance, is now engaged burying the bodies of the victims, which are being intened by hundieds. The area which was flooded contained fully 55,000 people. At Johnstown, whetu the damage done and loss of life was greatest, registry offices have been opened, wnh the object ot ascertaining the wants of the suivivors who hive been impoveiished by the catastrophe, and the record taken shows that of the total of fifty-five thousand previously stated, only about nine thousand perso.'S have been ascertained up till the present time to have survived. The incidents of the floods were in e\ery instance of a most distressing character, and the distress caused by the breaking up of families is heait1 ending. Out ot one family comprising twentynine persons, only one of the number survived the disaster. There is scarcely one of the survivors who has not to lament the death of some relatives, and one survivoi has buried as many as fourteen of his connections. Many families who were living in Johnstown prior to the advent of the floods are now wholly extinct. The scenes connected with the interment of the bodies of the drowned and of those who were burned to death in the debris are of a most harrowing character. Funerals are of constant and unvarying occurrence, and the occupation of those at Johnstown is almost wholly that of interring the dead. - One procession of people carrying coffins extended over a distance of two miles. Some escapes of a remarkable character are recorded. One survivor floated on the turbid waters of the flood for twenty-three miles astride of a telephone post. The debris which has accumulated in huge quantities at Johnstown bridge is to be burned with petroleum or destroyed by dynamite. Notwithstanding the promptness that has been displayed in interment of the victims, corpses are still lying about in all directions, and the air for miles around the scene of the calamity is tainted with the effluvia arising from decomposed bodies. A fresh trouble is reported from Petersburg and Alleghany, where the people are suffering from ihe effects of di inking water which has been poisoned by the decomposed human bonies. The fierceness of the torrents of water that overwhelmed the annihilated districts may be imagined from the fact that one square in Johnstown, formeily covered with buildings, as well as the surrounding streets, is now so baie that there is not a brick leit.

Every obstacle was swept away before the fearful deluge, and some locomotives were carried for a distance of ten miles by the force of the waters. Railway trains are now arriving daily at the scene of the calamity, and money is being subscribed in American towns, and also in London for relief of the sufferers. News from out-districls shows that hundreds of lives have been lost elsewhere than in the places already referred to. At Williamstown, Susquehanna, the floating debris carried away a bridge, and drowned fifty spectators under circumstances of a harrowing description.