ANAGUA DISASTER Epidemics report; looters warned

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33111, 29 December 1972, Page 9

ANAGUA DISASTER Epidemics report; looters warned

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) MANAGUA, December 28. Nicaraguan National Guard troops are patrolling thearthquake-devastated city of Managua today, with reived orders to shoot looters, gangs of whom are still prding among the ruins and hauling away items from food to refrigerators and cookers. Epidem; of disease are reported to have broken out amo; survivors still in the city.

he leader of the country. General Anastasio Sonioza, who ihe head of the National Guard and a former President, repeat his warning last night that all looters would be shot on sight, e said in a radio message that he appreciated the suffering caed by the earthquake, but that looting could not be tolerate

"Alanap has no more goods to ck, or doors to break tvn.” he said, a I m o s t desperately. "Now let i try to burv our dead.” "Beginning 3 day, I have) given firm orrs to the Na-| tional Guard i patrol thei £.'D- to l *t pillaging.! They have or<L to shoot if L necessary. ‘Go home anwait there—! we will give youjod. I order that the pillagit must stop! immediately. Letis establish! peace, which is4icaragua’s! only salvation.” Radio X, the on radio sta-! tion still broadening from! 1

!the Nicaraguan capital, reports that epidemics have broken out, and that the National Guard has placed a cordon around the shores of Lake Managua to stop infected persons leaving, or i anyone entering. ! In his radio message. Genleral Somoza said that the ! danger of epidemics was unIder control. He also said that ithe evacuation of the city—ordered after the earthquake as a precaution against disjease spreading from the thousands of bodies rotting in ithe street —was proceeding in an orderly fashion. To encourage people to leave Managua, which had a I population of about 400,000, ! emergency food centres have

been established outside the city limits. As food and other aid supplies for the 250,000 persons made homeless by the earthquake continue to flow in from abroad, units of the United States Army Corps of Engineers are moving in heavy equipment to dynamite its heart.

The city centre has been declared a contaminated area, and the tottering buildings in the area will be blasted and the rubble covered with lime to destroy the unidentified bodies lying everywhere.

The latest official estimates put the number of dead at between 2000 and 6000, but the full toll may never be known.

San Francisco city officials decided today to send nearly one-third of their own earthquake emergency relief supplies to Managua. I The Mayor (Mr Joseph Alioto) said that steps would be taken to get the 10,000 cases of high-protein food on its way to Nicaragua immediately. City departments are also co-operating in a massive food-collection campaign for the stricken Latin American city.