Cloudburst at Petra

John William Burgon, a 19th century British clergyman and minor poet, wrote a memorable line when he described ancient Petra as "a rose-red city half as old as time." Romantic, inaccessible, it lies in the midst of a vast desert in southern Jordan, and today, as always, its only approach is through a deep, narrow gorge called the Siq, which tradition says was created when Moses struck the rock with his rod. From 300 B.C. to A.D. 100, when Petra flourished as the caravan capital of the Nabataeans, the Siq made the city impregnable, since a few men in the serpentine gorge, often no more than two yards wide, could hold up an army. Today, the narrow three-mile course is traveled by thousands of tourists who go to gape at the elaborate tombs and temples built into rock that is colored crimson, sepia, brown and violet, like watered silk.

Desert Sprinkle. Two parties of foreigners reached the entrance to the Siq one day last week, eager to journey the remaining three miles to Petra. The first was a group of 23 Frenchwomen making a Holy Land pilgrimage under the tutelage of a Parisian priest, Abbe Jean Steinmann, 52, vicar of Notre Dame:* the second was a larger group of Italian pilgrims. The French party gaily entered the Siq gorge just as a sprinkle of rain began to fall. Four were traveling in a Land-Rover, the rest on foot.

Suddenly, the light rain became a cloudburst--the worst in arid Petra's recorded history. Within half an hour, torrential floods were streaming down from the hills and cliffs and pouring into the Siq as into a funnel. One Italian pilgrim said, "We heard shrieks and cries within the ravine, as the muddy cascade of water rushed by us. We saw the little car with the four women and the driver swept along by the torrent and then submerged. In an instant, they all disappeared in the floodwaters raging along at perhaps 60 miles an hour."

Prayers on the Ledge. Two young Frenchwomen, who were dawdling along behind the party, heard the roar of the oncoming flood and managed to scramble up the rock wall to a ledge 12 feet above the ground. "The water rose higher and higher," said one. "It gradually reached our feet, then our knees. We could not see the others, but we heard their cries. Soon we heard nothing but the thundering water. We clung to the ledge and prayed.'' Those two were saved, but when the flood subsided three hours later, the muddy floor of the gorge was littered with sodden, battered bodies--Abbe Steinmann, two Arabs (a guide and a driver), and 21 Frenchwomen. Petra police flashed word of the disaster to Amman and, dropping everything, King Hussein flew his helicopter to the Siq gorge and personally directed operations. The two survivors were rushed to comfortable quarters in Hussein's Basman Palace. The 22 others, who never quite reached the rose-red tombs of Petra, were embalmed for air shipment and burial at home in France.

* A famed Biblical specialist, Abbe Steinmann wrote several books on the prophets, but in 1961 his Life of Jesus was placed on the Vatican's Index of banned works, and a year later the church forbade him any further Biblical publications. However, Abbe Steinmann remained vicar of Notre Dame.

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