TERRIFIC GALES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 233, 2 October 1928, Page 7

TERRIFIC GALES.

EUROPE STORM-SWEPT

Epic War Scenes Enacted On

Belgian Coast.

ENORMOUS DAMAGE DONE.

(Australian and N.Z. Press Association.)

(Received 12 noon.) LONDON, October 1. Terrific North Sea gales played havoc with the Belgian coast, smashing the sluices at Nieuport. Floods are spreading over the famous battlefield in the same country which was inundated by the Belgians in 1914 to save the army. The pier at Zeebrugge was breached, the storm thus repeating the British submarine epic of 1918. Floods 'nave isolated houses and there is widespread destruction and distress. Troops from the Ostend garrison weie dispatched to the rescue, and worked all day long making ramparts with sandbags and attempting to repair the dykes, which are still breached. It is feared that many small craft in the North Sea were overwhelmed. Wreckage is already coming into shore. The effect of the gales was felt in England. Water piled up the Thames Estuary and heavy storms spread over France, followed by floods from the Alps, demolishing bridges and houses and doing enormous damage.