Devastating Debris Flow in Lichtenberg near Glurns

Austrian Monarchy.

Tyrol.

Glurns, 30 May. Lichtenberg, that picturesque little village beneath the ruins of the Counts Khuen's castle, which, surrounded by gardens and framed by green meadows and fields, also caught the traveler's eye from the Mals post road, was transformed into an enduring wasteland by an immense debris flow on the 18th and 19th of this month. The village brook, swollen into a raging torrent, destroyed several houses, rolled colossal boulders from the back of the valley alongside giant trees and sawlogs, covered the entire surrounding area with debris and stones as deep as a man's height, tore open gullies and chasms of astonishing proportions, and left only 9 of the 35 residences entirely undamaged. During these two days of terror, the victims thus lost house and property, land rents, and the collateral for their capital—in short, everything except their lives. Even the few spared plots of land will be difficult to cultivate, as the water pipes have also been destroyed and the brook has carved out a new course. In the face of the devastating elemental forces, the commendable efforts of the relief teams who rushed in from the neighboring villages of Glurns, Prad, and Schluderns, led by their magistrates and with the continuous assistance of the judicial commission and the local clergy, proved in vain. What can weak human hands achieve against unleashed natural fury! Yet the measure of such misery was far from full. In the days immediately following, a quarter of an hour from Lichtenberg, the Gulbach swelled into a broad, raging mudflow, depositing a mass of fathom-deep silt and gravel across a wide stretch of the most fertile ground, overflowing the main municipal road at its widest point and rendering it impassable to pedestrians for several days and to transport for an extended period. Truly too much sorrow all at once! Many families will be reduced to poverty, or at least most will never again recover even their former, merely modest economic standing. The sight is heart-wrenching: houses silted up to the height of the front doors; no trace left of the parsonage barn, the smithy, the mill, and the gamekeeper's lodge largely demolished, graves in the churchyard collapsed, and the mightiest trees mournfully protruding into the desolate sea of sand by their crowns alone. An entire community in the deepest mourning, with no prospect other than help from above and the assistance of compassionate benefactors. — May this appeal find its way into the hearts of all the inhabitants of the province!