FLOODS INCREASE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 124, 23 April 1927, Page 9

FLOODS INCREASE

\ DEATH ROLL MOUNTING; THOUSANDS DESTITUTE. MISSISSIPPI’S DEVASTATION > \ (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received April 23, at 9.40 a.m. NEW YORK, April 22. At least 30 more have been drowned in the Mississippi floods in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death roll as far as is known, from water and cyclones to 200. Many centres have not ret been heard from. THe numbers of injured and missing are still. increasing. The biting cold has added to the tragedy. Thousands of destitute people m concentration camps have only canvas shelter. The rise of. the rivers has affected the water supplies, and in many instances severs have backed up. Consequently epidemics of typhoid, diphtheria and other diseases are feared. News from Kansas City states: “The bitter weather to-day added to the horrors <?f thousands of disease-stricken and destitute Mississippi flood refugees. The death toll increases hourly. The waters have covered 3000 square miles of the Mississippi delta. Relief workers are fighting a losing battle to protect the levee north of Greenville, which is a town of 20',000 people and which probably will be flooded, several feet to-night. Before noon the waters were rising three inches an hour, and they had already entered the general residential sections and the ground flood _of the buildings in the business section. The town is without a train service. A shortage of (ood is feared. Livestock from the countryside is running wild in the streets. “Approximately 100,000 people are homeless. The floods have not reached the peak.”—A. and N.Z. cable.

LAUNCH CAUGHT IN TORRENT. REFU GEES~DROWNED. Received April 23, 10.50 a.m. NEW YORK, April 22. Nineteen were drowned when a Government launch carrying refugees up the Mississippi was caught in a torrent. The levee broke last night at Krowlton landing, Arkansas. News from Joplin, Missouri, states that a frost swept the Ozark fruit belt last night and destroyed approximately 50 per cent, of the grapes and strawberry crops. The loss is estimated at two million dollars.—A. and N.Z. cable.