MESSINA TO-DAY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 109, 5 June 1909, Page 3

MESSINA TO-DAY.

PLIGHT OF THE HUT-DWELLERS. tfO WATER, LIGHT, or SANITATION. Messina, April 10. The present state of Messina, more than three months after the earthquake, •is no better than in the days immediately following the catastrophe. No arrangements have yet been made •to clear away the city's ruins. The s*eafront only is available 'for traffic, and even that is two-thirds full of rubbish excavated from ruined houses and stacked twenty feet high. The steam tramway running along "this sea-front, extending forty miles along the north coast and twenty miles Southwards, and connecting Messina ■with the villages, would have rendered ■vast assistance to the populace and the •laborers in the work or clearance, but •it is not available. Nor are there prospects of an early resumption of the service, since the municipality has no energy and no funds to pay the arrears due to the tramway company. It is. therefore, forced to await the company's decision regarding a project to electrify the service.

Exceedingly little has been done in •the work of erecting shelters. Most of the rough huts exicting have been built •by their inhabitants, who had to buy wood and pay labor for the building^ There is 110 sanitation of any kind whatever. Neither is there any sanitary inspection u£ removal- of the iilth t Accumulating, daily, almost hourly, among the huts. There arc jio arrangements for the removal or destruction of mattresses and lurniture soaked with putrid matter from the dead and extracted from the ruins. These articles are left lying in the sun among the wreckage, while millions upon millions of large buzzing lli *s swarm over them, carrying tlie deadly 'germs broadcast among the populace •and depositing the seeds of pestilence on the food sold in the huts, which arc used as sliops. Among this food is much which has •been recovered from the ruins of the -shop? in the town which were under (blocks of flats.

There is' practically no illumination at night in the ruined city, or any possibility of transit. Xo assistance whatever is given to commercial enterprise, 'and business firms cannot get concessions of ground and wood for building ■warehouse?. Enterprising merchants •are 7i>rced to utilise all available shops or warehouses among the ruins, whether the buildings are safe ot not. The railway service is most unsatisfactory. The "express" trains are not infrequently one or two bourn late. Often the trains run without lamps, and the candles' supplied are insufficient. •Frequently the passengers are left in total darkness.

There is immense difficulty in obtaining trucks for merchandise, as the people, lacking huts, are forced to live in carriages and vans all along the line.

There is likewise immense difficulty ia obtaining permits for excavating the ruins 01 houses, ami when these are obtained there are not sufficient military escorts to satisfy all the applicants. In this way endless delay and great annoyance are caused.

King Victor 'ftrr'ianyei and" Queen Elena, in leaking their tour of Messjnu, rcfuseu escorts irom the authorities, and •went alone to visit all the ruins and to cheer the hut-dwellers, urging the people to express their want 4 '. Jioth the King and Queen were greatly dissatisfied wifli the state ol affairs. The populace hopes that more energy and more consideration will be displayed as the result of tin- Royal visit.