A GREAT CALAMITY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 261, 27 March 1913, Page 5

A GREAT CALAMITY.

AMERICAN TOWNS OVERWHELMED. BY UNPRECEDENTED FLOODS. THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DROWNED. DAMAGE TO PROPERTY INCALCULABLE.

By Cable —Press Association —Copyright. Received '2O. 9.5.) p.m. Indianapolis. March 25. Thirty feet of water covers tlie streets of Davton (Ohio). The city is in darkness. ■Scores of lives are reported to have been lost. The water is still rising. All communications have been cut off. Fort Wayne, Logansport, Terrehaule and other small towns are inundated. The loss of life is unknown. It is believed to be heavy. Frantic appeals for help are being received. It is reported that a reservoir at Hamilton broke, and that the rush of waters overwhelmed the town. A large part of the population, numbering a thousand, were drowned. Confirmation is impossible, owing to the disorganisation of communication. Seven thousand are known to be homeless.

Nineteen were drowned at Delaware, Ohio, by the overflowing river. At Olentagy scores of people are marooned in trees and on housetops. All the bridges in the neighborhood have been destroved.

Tin- country bears the appearance of a battlefield.

Bodies are floating down the Miami river, which is almost choked with the wreckage of houses. Unconfirmed reports assert that sixty were drowned at Abong Levees, and thirty thousand are homeless at Dayton and the surrounding country.

The Lewiston reservoir broke after a terrific storm, flooding the city. The damage to property is incalculable.

The local authorities of the town of Peru; Indiana, telephone to Indianopolis at midnight, asking for the despatch of 000 coffins. A relief train has been sent. MESSAGE FROM OHIO. 2000 DROWNED. FATE OF 400 CHILDREN. NATIONAL GUARD CALLED OUT. Received 20, 11 p.m. New York, March 20.

The latest message from Dayton states that two thousand people are reported to have been drowned. The chiefs streets are a mass of swirling waters. Down town the hotels and buildings are submerged to the third storey. People are refuging on the roofs.

A school which contained -100 children before the flood became entirely submerged. It is presumed all perished.

The entire Ohio National Guard has been called out.

Many people escaped in a Wyoming street by hanging to telephone wires and lowering themselves into a boat, wherewith rescue work was continued until daylight. The estimates of the dead are unreliable. THE RECENT TORNADO. HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE KILLED. OVER TWO THOUSAND HOMELESS. Omaha, March 25. The death-roll is definitely put at 152, while eighteen were killed at Tcrre Haute. A downpour extinguished the lires and saved the citv from destruction. A doctor, who was asleep in his office, was carried out bv the force of the wind, and deposited upon his mattress in the middle of the street unhurt.. The buiiding was wrecked. New York. March 25. Reports from Cincinatti staje that a cloudburst turned the Ohio river and its tributaries into railing torrents. The water is feet deep in the streets o f Davton. Th ous,mi's are homeless in Ohio and Indiana. Bridges were tarried of!', and whole areas of farming country inundated. Tvaois were stopped at Kansas City.

The tornado struck Makarda. Illinois, .".nd eight, persons were killed and manv hmises rawd to ihe ground. Omaha reports .state that (he total death-roll from the tornado in the middle-west States totals 275. The blizzard r,t;.iing has hampered rescue work. Over two thousand home less persons are receiving relief. Re buildintr plans are already or, foot.