SHROUD OF DUST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1935, Page 9

SHROUD OF DUST.

PHENOMENAL STORM

Vast Area of United States Suffers.

HEAVY DAMAGE REPORTED

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright)

KANSAS CITY, March 22.

The middle-western States of America, which have been in the grip of continuous dust storms since the beginning' of the week, now face an exceptionally serious situation as a repetition of last year's drought is threatened.

The dust storm area extended from Texas to North and South Dakota, and from Oklahoma to Illinois. Hundreds of thousands of acres of fine wheat lands lime boon all but denuded of their crops, and other areas are covered with a plant-stifling layer of dust.

In -Kansas and Missouri housewives and municipalities could only await the settling of the dust before starting the seemingly hopeless task of cleaning homes and streets. None escaped. The dust was as fluid as the air which bore it and it penetrated everywhere, coated furniture and made breathing difficult.

In Western Kansas people became lost in a continuous night. Schools were closed and the highways were blocked by the Kansas Highway Patrol in order to avoid accidents. Train schedules were interrupted and aeroplanes stayed on the ground. Yesterday the sun palely while motor car headlights gleamed weirdly in blue and green. All colours were intensified or distorted. Hundreds of hospital patients gulped air through wet cloth's. Postmen went on their routes with masks over their faces. Merchants ■ stripped their display windows, shut their doors and swathed their counters with protective sheets. Housewives packed pictures, linens and household furnishings away.

A fanner, wandered in circles, lost in his 10-acre field until he fell exhausted Neighbours finally found him.

The dust caused dull headaches and to many people sleep was difficult. Hundreds of people wrapped in wet sheets arose to find themselves like mummies in shrouds of mud.

So dense was the dust pall in Chicago yesterday that two aeroplanes hovered over the municipal airport for more than an hour before the pilots found a rift through which to land.