In one of the worst flood disasters Poland has known, 300 persons, large numbers of them Jews, were killed today in the region of Pulawy and Sandomierz, near the confluence of the Vistula and San rivers.
Last week floods cost about 200 lives.
The disaster today was caused by heavy rains, which resulted in the bursting of protective dikes, with consequent inundation of the area. Eleven thousand people were forced to evacuate precipitately.
Damage from the flood was estimated at $1,500,000.
Among the victims were twenty children and their teacher, who were trapped in the midst of their lessons at school.
Meanwhile, a conflagration destroyed the township of Pupc, in the Nowogrodek district. All houses owned by Jews were razed by the flames. Lightning struck and killed a Nara hooligan who in May wounded the Pabjanicer Rabbi Mendele Alter.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatched representatives to the flood sector.
The havoc was most overwhelming in Western Galicia, but also affected parts of Eastern Galicia and Congress Poland. At Tarnow, Szczucin, Gorlice, Rabka, Nowysancz, Sandomierz, Zawychost and Pelcowizna, the latter a suburb of Warsaw, the damage assumed catastrophic proportions.
In amount of losses suffered, it was estimated that Jews were hard hit—to the extent of at least twenty per cent. Dead among the Jews numbered fifty, according to earliest reports.
Joseph Neugasser, a Jewish officer in the Reserves, was drowned while engaged in rescue work in the township of Rabka while the River Raba was at floodtide. Neugasser, who was thirty-nine, was buried by the Jewish community.
1,000 FAMILIES HOMELESS
One thousand Jewish families in
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