THE JOHNSTOWN DISASTER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1901, 8 June 1889, Page 1

THE JOHNSTOWN DISASTER.

Washington, June 5. Pour thousand corpses have been recovered from the scene of the catastrophe in Conemaugb Valley, and n regiment of soldiers is now engaged in burying them by hundreds at a time. It is estimated that fully forty-five thousand persons resided on the area flooded in and around Johnstown, and np to the present the registry offices for survivors have recorded only one thousand names. Out of one family of twenty-seven there is only one survivor, Another has buried fourteen relatives. Many families are known to bo extinct. A procession engaged in carrying coffins extended two miles. One ol those who escaped floated twenty-three miles astride of a telegraph pole. The debris piled against Johnstown bridge will have to be burned by the aid of petioleum, or destroyed by dynamite. The sir for miles round the town is tainted by the effluvium from the corpses, and Pittsburg and Alleghany city are suffering from poisoned water. Johnstown Square and the streets surrounding it have been swept so bare by the rushing water that not a single brick is left, Some of the locomotives on the railway linos were hurled along ten miles by the force of the flood. Relief trains are now arriving on the scene daily, and money is being subscribed in all American cities and in London in aid of the stricken districts. Many hundreds of lives have been lost in other places affected by the floods. Floating debris carried away a bridge over the Susquehana at Williams’ Poin*, and drowned fifty spectators who were watching the flood. New York, June 5. The sum of £200,000 has been subscribed in aid of the sufferers by the Johnstown flood. June 6. A final estimate computes the loss of life at Johnstown at 15,000 persons Sydney, June 6. Tho Mayor of Sydney has sont a telegram to the President of the United States, sympathising with the sufferers by the great floods.