SWEPT BY HURRICANE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 256, 28 September 1932, Page 7

SWEPT BY HURRICANE

DISASTER AT PUERTO RICO. MANY PERSONS KILLED. THOUSANDS HOMELESS. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received September 28, 9.5 a.m. SAN JUAN, (Puerto Rico), Sept. 28. More than 200 persons are known to have been killed and at least 1000 injured in a terrific hurricane which raged from 11 p.m. on Monday to 2.30 a.m. on Tuesday, The full force of the 120 miles an hour wind struck before midnight, causing property damage even greater than the disastrous blow in September, 1928. Thousands are homeless. Most of the dead, according to the first reports, are in the smaller outlying towns such as Barrios, Sabanallana, Catano and Riopiedras. The estimates of the casualties were made by the Governor, Mr James Beverley, after receiving casualty reports. Here in the city the loss of life was materially reduced by the police, who took the precaution of rounding up hundreds of women and children and removing them from their homes to safety in the more substantial churches and school buildings. The villages, consisting mostly of flimsy homes, had no such protection. Even in San Juan homes were unroofed by the hundred and torrents of rain poured in. A quick survey indicated that at least 800 of 1000 dwellings on the ocean front section of the city were wholly destroyed or are uninhabitable.

Puerto Rico (or Porto Rico) is a fertile West India island with an area of 3530 square miles. Tho principal crops are sugar, coffee, rice, tobacco, maizo, jams, bananas and plaintains. In the middle of September, 1928, a tornado at Porto Rico caused the death of a largo number of residents and terrible destruction of property, most of the island, with tho exception of the capital, San Juan, being ruined. At the same time a hurricane swept across Florida and caused great damage.