AFTERMATH OF CYCLONE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28554, 7 April 1958, Page 11

AFTERMATH OF CYCLONE

Fear Of Disease In Town (Rec. 7 p.m.) BRISBANE, April 6. Health authorities at Bowen, 713 miles north of Brisbane, said today that they feared a gastroenteritis epidemic would follow the devastation caused by a cyclone on Tuesday. Round-the-clock work to repair the unroofed reservoir and the broken-down water treatment plant could not be completed in less than two days. People in the town have been warned to boil all water before drinking it. Police are keeping a strict check on all reports of sickness. Bowen’s 1100 homeless, reinforced by 400 men who battled through flood-waters from nearby towns, today began the first organised rebuilding of roughlypatched houses. Of the 637 houses damaged by the cyclone, 77 have been written off as total losses, and 333 classed as “badly damaged.” Workers have been eating from mobile army kitchens and sleeping in railway carriages. Bowen will protest to the Government about the “inaccuracy” of the Weather Bureau’s cyclone warning. The cyclone struck an hour before predicted and the wind reached 112 miles an hour instead of the 60 miles an hour forecast. Floods on the Central Queensland coast, which followed the cyclone, were easing today.