THE FLOODS IN FRANCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2723, 31 January 1910, Page 5

THE FLOODS IN FRANCE.

CABLE NEWS.

AN UNPRECEDENTED DISASTER.

MISERY AND DESOLATION PITIFUL.

Unitbd Prkbb Abbooiation —Copyright. PARIS, Jan. 28. The Senate has adopted a measure extending the date of payment of bills falling due dn flooded districts. It is estimated that 100,000 hands have been thrown idle. The Gare St. Lazare, one of the principal railway stations in Paris, has been closed. The Seine to-day overflowed the parapets of the Quai Conference, invading the Champs Elysees esplanade and the Invalides.

Severe cold has been experienced, and many sewers are bursting. The Twelfth Arondissement has been entirely inundated, partly from sewers. Military posts have been established behind the barriers to ensure order. The misery and desolation in the out. lying quarters are pitiful.

HELP FROM LONDON AND AMERICA.

LONDON, Jan. 28. A Mansion (House fund has been opened in London. President Taft cabled a message of sympathy, and offering to supply Red Cross aid.

HISTORIC' BUILDINGS ENDANGERED.

(Received January 30, 5 p.m.) PARIS, Jan. 29. Violent rain and hail continue in The Seine has risen 30 feet.

The Comedie Francaise and Notre Dame are threatened.

The Elysees central telegraph office is flooded, and communication between Paris and London destroyed.

TERRIBLE DEVASTATION AND

DISTRESS. The residents in some of the streets have been foodlees since Wednesday, and people are crying from their windows for bread. Alarming subsidences have occurred iii many streets through the waters’ upward pressure and the collapsing of the net-work of sewers, watermains, and hydraulic tubes. The roadway in the Avenue ATevander the Third has collapsed. The flooded quarters are without gas, therefore the price of candles, oils, and food is rising. The cellars of flhe Opera House and the Mint are full, of water.

The underground section of the Hotel dc Villa, the Ministries of Marine, War and Finance, the Marigny Theatre, the Bastille, and the Metropolitan railway station are all flooded. A torrent 30 feet deep is racing through the underground station at des Invalides and the adjoining tunnel 20 feet below the roadway. The flood is also roaring through the underground station at the Rue Dando, 500 yards from the Seine. It is feared that the section which passes under the Seine has fallen in.

At the Voisin' aeroplane works dozens -of aeroplanes have been destroyed. Some of the imprisoned residents have had terrible fights with the rats driven out of the sewers iby the water.

The flood extends for a mile north of the Seine to St. Lazare station, and swept away the barricades in the Boulevard Hanssmann.

The Place St. Michael, the Trocadero, and the Champ de Mars are all completely submerged. A chasm in the Champ, 3 Elysces engulfed a woman. The northern and eastern railway lines are open, and the officials are appealing for every ; boat that can be sent to Paris.

;rhe crowd sacked some food shops. A great dyke at Genncvilliers hurst, flooding a large area and imprisoning 7000 people in their homes. The Boucicaut Hospital had to- be hastily evacuated. Engineers constructed a footbridge and carried the Avomen patients Avitli difficulty across water five feet deep. Some of the patients did not survive the shock. Funerals are using .boats.

The Paris Bourse j s agitated, and there is a heavy fall in stocks.

AID FROM TSAR AND POPE

Tilie Tsar has given £IOOO and the Pope £I2OO towards the relief of the sufferers.