INUNDATIONS IN AUSTRIA AND ITALY.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4328, 14 November 1882, Page 3

INUNDATIONS IN AUSTRIA AND ITALY.

The rain in the Tyrol having ceaseJ, if is now apparent tbat great damage has been caused by the inundations, but the extent of it cannot yet be estimated. A telegram from Klagenfurt says the crops on both banks of tbe Eiver Guil, in the ▼alley of tbat name, are now destroyed, and that the stock of provisions is exhausted. That district is almost impossible of access, all the neighboring bridges being swept away. An eye-witness reports from Villach that the picturesque locality of Welsberg, familiar to tourists in the Tyrol, is reduced to a heap of ruins. Hardly anything remains of the beautiful village of Innichen; while from Abfaltersbech to Stettwauld not a veßtige of the railroad is to be seen. The village of Salurn is completely submerged, and at Newmarket even the church is threatened with destruction. From Verona it is Stated that a terrible misfortune has befallen that city. From the Austrian Tyrol the melted snow, helped by the frequent and heavy rains, has so swollen the Adige that whole tracks of country are submerged, trees are washed out.of the ground by the roots, and besides the damage done to other places in Italy by similar misfortunes, Verona has become a huge lake. Aweekagothe people were warned of the threatened danger, which found them still unprepared at the morning of the great floods. In the middle of the night the Adige swelled and swelled, drowning them while they slept. No exact computation can be made of the actual number of deaths, but it is supposed that at least thirty persons are lying dead in the ruins of the fallen houses on the banks of the rushing river. Communication is entirely cut off between Verona and Venice. The railway bridge is so much damaged that it is impossible for the trains to pass over to the cities and towns of the gulfs and the Adriafic. Milan and Verona are full of English tourists unable to go forward and unwilling to return. Two bridges spanning the Adige at this spot have been entirely carried away—one an iron strueturo, erec ted at great cost last year, and the other of solid masonry, dating from the 14th century. Tbe bakeries and flour stores have beon destroyed, and but for public charity Verona might have been reduced to a state bordering on famine. Hundreds of persons turned out of house and home by the relentless flood, have had to sleep in the churches, and hundreds of rough beds have been laid along the floor of St. Bernardino, a time worn fifteenth century religious house. No such catastrophe has befallen the city of Verona since the occurrence of a somewhat similar misfortune a little more than a century ago. -