Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1901 — PERISH IN A BLIZZARD. [ARTICLE]

PERISH IN A BLIZZARD.

One Hundred and Twenty Lives Are Lost. A GREAT STORM IN RUSSIA. Eighteen Hundred Person* Huddled Together in a Railway Station —Unable to Communicate with the Outside World for Five Day* —Great Suffering. Communication with the world has been reopened at Odessa, Russia, after ten days’ isolation. The snow blizzard continued , unceasingly for 100 hours, and it is reported that 120 persons perished. The Odessa correspondent of the London Daily Mail" describes the sufferings of the railway passengers who were overtaken by the

storm. Hundreds of persons left St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kieff, and elsewhere for Odessa on Jan. 6, for the Russian Christmas, which as the event proved they were doomed to spend isolated from the world. For five days and five nights they were half-starved and half frozen. The first train struck the blizzard south of Razdyelnaia and was soon stuck in a twelve-foot drift. The passengers were not alarmed, expecting that the line would be quickly cleared. They made themselves as comfortable as they could at the station. The expected help did not come, and in the course of twenty-four hours three more trains arrived. There were then 1,800 persons huddled in the station with vanishing hope of relief. The food stores readily dwindled, and the passengers became alarmed. They clamored that something be done. A telegram was sent demanding help, but there was no response. Another 24 hours passed, and two more trains laden with terrified and hungry passengers arrived. They had occupied sixteen hours in covering forty miles. The late arrivals stormed the buffet, struggling ravenously, and consumed what food was left. A horrible night was passed. The passengers were virtually without food.. In the morning a peasant volunteered to carry telegrams to the nearest station, which was six miles away. He arrived with several of his fingers frozen. The dispatches begged for help from St. Petersburg and Odessa. Sixty passengers, including Count Kapnist, resolved to trudge and seek sledges rather than to spend another night on their train, where the stench was almost unendurable. Count Kapnist’ and forty other succeeded in reaching Odessa on Friday. The fate of the others who started with him has not been learned.