FEARFUL STORM IN AUSTRIA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1391, 12 September 1885, Page 3

FEARFUL STORM IN AUSTRIA.

A fearful hurricane has been raging over Bukowina and Galicia, causing serious loss of life and immense destruction of property. As many as eight persons were killed by lightning at Yissilz alone. In many districts the crop has been completely destroyed by the hail, and whole townships have been [laid waste. Many of the fine forests of Bukowina and Galicia have also sustained considerable damage, reports from the regions over which the storm passed stating that upwards of 10,000 oaks and maples have been uprooted. During the height of the hurricane a fire, supposed to have been caused by lightning, broke out at Horodenka, in Galicia, a town of some 8000 or 9000 inhabitants, and aided by the high wind, spread with such rapidity that before it could be extinguished 600 houses were reduced to ashes, and the people whom they had sheltered, to the number of 5000, rendered homeless. The unfortunates, who are mainly Jews of the very poorest class, are now without shelter of any kind, and are almost entirely without food. Two of the inhabitants were burnt to death, and many children are missing. Subscriptions in aid of the sufferers have already been opened by most of the newspapers. In the North Hungarian village of Cosma the lightning struck the church just as mass was being performed. Of the congregation present two young women were killed and thirty-two other persons stunned and more or less severely injured. Floods and thunderstorms continue to be reported from Bohemia, where the village of Zechov has been nearly destroyed, several bridges and houses being swept away by the inundations.