INUNDATIONS IN FRANCE.

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 241, 10 February 1860, Page 2

INUNDATIONS IN FRANCE.

Melancholy accounts continue to arrive from the south of France of the loss of life and destruction of property caused by the late inundations. A letter from Aubenas, in the Ardeche, informs us that on the night of the 15th instant, a flour mill at Mayres was carried away by the flood. The entire family, consisting of the miller, his mother, his sister, and two children, of five and two years of age, together with a neighbour who happened to be in the mill at the time, all perished.' At Montpezat, Casimir Testud, late a sergeant in the 44th regiment of Infantry, was carried away by the waters of a small stream which he crossed on his return home, and was drowned,,, An eighth victim, a farmer, returning on horseback from Montpezat to Aubenas, was drowned in a rivulet which he found on his passage., Two only of the bodies had been recovered—those, of Testud and the miller's sister. The loss of property announced is very considerable. Several manufactories have been levelled by the force of the waters, 'bridges broken down, and roads rendered impassable. The road near Mayres is covered with gravel to the depth of 4 feet. In other parts the road is obstructed by immense masses of rock, which it will require the force of gunpowder to > remove. The road at Point de Ville was carried away to the extent of 200 yards.— Letter from Paris. Further accounts have been received of accidents caused by the over-flowing of the rivers in the south of France. The Rhone, at Avignon, suddenly. swollen on Saturday the 16th, by the flood in the Ardeche, overflowed its bed. Its yellow, muddy water covered a great portion of the Island of Barthelasse, sweeping away a considerable quantity of timber placed near the. banks of the river. The lower parts of Carreterie was covered by the sudden eruption of the waters. Fortunately, the flood did not last long. The waters fell to. their proper level, and no mark of the inundation remains but mud left by receding waters.