REPORT FROM RUMANIA

RAGING TORRENT
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Satu-Mare—a town in the north of Rumania most heavily struck by the
Here over 21,000 houses were flooded, many of them destroyed.

SUAPEEULEEDUUEEEA ELLA EEEEULTUEREUUSELEEUCLTEREEEEEOTUUUETUUEUEE EE ELEOUUOUREUEO CECE DCCC EEE and I don’t want the children of this . ing, the houses collapsing as

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= <7, 5 . : : = i ild’s chi th ere being exploded by d
= Humanity i Our days S undergoing terrible ordeals. And = aa He ee ye me 28 Toni this ae ie complete
= the peop le—from beautiful Vietnam, now defoliated by savage = fortune that has befallen us... As for ished, that one too, this one can
= invaders, to Peru and the Danubian Valley, suffering great = the coffins, they’ll be taken away from stand. There used to be a howl
= natural calamities—are displaying courage and endurance that = here, to where they are needed. W the waves seized it and swept
= are truly epic. = don’t feel like dying .. .” who knows where. e
= : . a “ : 29 “ kin a 4
= ‘The hearts and helping hand of decent people throughout = Have you received any help? Sampaio UIE 200k loo : lone
= the world go out to the victims of war, of earthquakes, of = “Yes, dear, our lives were saved. I’m was going on. People cou! on
= eg g 5 ; = not thinking of myself, but of these weep—only some of the Mea:
= ; = children. D’you know what it is to feel the children looked on witho
= _On these pages we present a picture of the flood disaster = death’s scythe whistling above you and standing what it meant. Have a
= in Rumania—similar floods were dealt with by similar courage = be saved just in tirne? May those who eee how children gaze at ©
= : 3 * ine. = saved us enjoy good health and fortune UNE: 4 j sir Pe ith
= and devotion in Hungary and epee ee di US.-made = all their lives. We’ve received assist- . “Now they are living with thelt
= ‘ The people of Indochina are suifering unending U: ad = ance too. Food and clothing. Now ‘ple in the Council building or } ot!
= disaster day after day, year after year.... q Iti f = they’ve counted up our losses and told pitched beside the mona ,
= anity calls for action to end the man-made cruelties Of = us to choose a site for a house. What the old school. We've lifte |
= wa se cae the hand of help to all who need it. = a pity we left the bread trough full of parquet in the secondary sce b
= . = rising dough—I.saw it swirl past the the children are washing it, b P
FrannaunnuenQenaueUUaQUgQueaUaQUCQUOQUEDEAUENDUOEVOGEQUEOUOUUOOUNOUOUGOUEOEOOCOQUOOUEGEOUEOEOUEOUEGUEGUOGUOAUOSUODEOINOLENS window on the water...” —then we'll get the bits dried 4"
: : them back in place again.” is
at e
- ‘“ * : f ‘blue ten
IGORESCU There, in the middle of the waters, Several scores 0 :
= ere -you can’t get to it.” At Ilia three hundred houses were people crowdéd with their be
Our children have learned new words “Where do you live?” damaged—27 of them disappeared com- and the few fowls they ee 3
stores, palantiv food. sictae VS “In railway boxcars near the station pletely, crushed under the onrushing save. Scores of times a day 4
had thought they would be spared, but : : ”h lif ; ; between their old houses an
oe dh of Ilia, with mother and granny, he waters lifted up and-carried away by >
apes Deve seen everything, ‘hey “nave answered. “You know, granny refused the Muresh. Over 1,700 hectares of Of tents, now to recover are
_learned everything. to leave the house, they had to drag cereal crops were covered with silt. On few nails, @ saucepal, 24

A friend of mine who is putting up her out by force—now she’s ill.” the desk of the chairman of the Peo- a picture frame. -

a niece of his, aged nine, a native of ple’s Council there is a pile of docu- I saw the children in Lipov#
Satu Mare, tells me that in the day- = ments no one would have thought of up their school: in the ~
time the little girl behaves quite nor- Four boxcars. And beside the ware- three weeks ago. Dossiers with the school. Hanging from the ceili
mally; she does her lessons, plays, house a stack of coffins. » names of the flood victims; dossiers ealpted garlands ee corrugatet
writes to her parents and schoolfriends. « , 99 with official reports on the aid received ut below, everything was ©
But every night, at half past one—the eae See paneer teas from all parts of the country and its the furniture broken, the
evil hour—she wakes up shrieking, “Oh, h ene eiica > asia ails distribution; dossiers recording the pieces .

shuddering at the same nightmare. She d : th cigs £ . denne = ea Tt BS I damages to be paid by the state social In the playground the chil
had been snatched up barely awake, RIBOSE See 3 insurance; dossiers of the damage longer played. They were ti

had a brooding hen sitting on eggs and

wra in her quilt and flung of the : 3 caused to the production of the coope- .' diligently working, followin
pring parents’ house collapsed amid the little ones had just started peck- rative farm; dossiers containing appli- Soke of their ee
a dreadful noise. And behind the boat, ne: : : cations. There is only one that is showed that the worst was
the torrent was sweeping away all sorts _ “How much longer are you going to empty, the dossier on the loss of hu- bad dreams no longer distur®™
of broken things, school-childen’s copy- live here? * man life. And this, is the most impor- sleep, and that. they would /2
books, toys and dolls. _ “Well, as ~~ as hae teot A Bees tant thing of all. ses play again.

Ree: A Mcallen: the Mares: Val > -JUSt measured up-awite Jord newnouse I éxtracted a few passages from the ow
ley, a man was mk Rae Resins ine and brought the materials. I’m an old bulky record of the aid received by Ilia THE TOMB OF THE KNO

woman. I’ve seen two wars and the from the inhabitants of the Hunedoar. SOLDIER
Muresh very big in 1932. I think that istrict. a

first I'd better wait for the waters to ‘
receed and then go back; we’re going to

layer of silt broken pieces of his house,
which he carted away in a wheelbar-
row. On a plot of waste land, which

: : Near the tomb of the unk®
Flood damage at Ilia, one locality dier we should today pay

used to be a garden with flower beds, : : among several hundred so afflicted, the tombs of the known soldié
his wife was washing away the slime bulldsa nonse-sbatewill Test 200 Years amounted to several million lei. This not find words to express thé
sticking to all that was left of a cup- srpnenagenZ is a locality numbering 500 families of the thousands of Rumania
board. Both of them were working in ‘with some 2,000 persons altogether, of whom I met here during thes?

‘silence. And their child, a boy about
six, was. standing motionless on a
scooter watching them with the sad-
ness of a wounded bird. I wanted to
take his photo and I asked him to
smile. He just stared at me with tears
in his eyes.

which 118 families numbering, «374 nt of
persons, have been evacuated. Reckon- ae por See war
ing ‘by the value of the bills of the they were not prepared for W
State. Insurance Company the damage had not been fresned
< nd
trend” a.

e4
wr

suffered by 27 households amounts to ; a
313,000 lei. The destruction caused to ee, Seach ae

the more than 300 houses and other z E
buildings amount to 1,550,000 lei. .This
is apart from the damages suffered by
the cooperative stores, the cooperative
farm, the warehouses and the crops.

“Come on, I said, play, ride your
scooter, laugh!” He didn’t move.

“He no longer smiles,” said the
woman, “take his photo as he is and
send us one too. We had a big album
of photos, but the water carried them
away.”

I took the boy’s picture and thought
of the next album this family would
have: the first page would no longer
show the photo of the bride and bride-
groom, smiling in the doorway of their
new house, but the photo of a cheer-
less little boy and a scooter clogged
with mud, in front of a house in ruins.

“Please, mister, take my picture
too!” asked a stripling of about twelve,
who had been watching me.

“Where’s your house?” I asked him.

People saw the earnings of a lifetime
disappear in a twinkling! All their
valuables, their souvenirs, their wed-
ding gifts, all the things that had made
their houses beautiful were swept
away. I shall never forget teacher Du-
mitriu of Lipova, once such a neat lit-
tle town, whose streets now appearing
from under the water looked worse
than after the war. While he walked
with me among the ruins, he told me
in a strangled voice: “I was standing
high up on the roof in the night and
I could hear the raging waters roar- ; A chemical plant i

rinravo™ |

: PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1970—Page 4