MEXICAN DISASTER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 257, 27 September 1933, Page 7

MEXICAN DISASTER

HURRICANE SWEEPS TAMPICO. FIVE THOUSAND DEAD OR INJURED. APPALLING DAMAGE CAUSED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received September 27, 10.5 a.m. MEXICO CITY, Sept. 26. Five thousand are dead or injured and thousands are homeless as a result of the hurricane which swept over Tampico late on Sunday morning, causing enormous property damage. The city of Tampico is flooded and is virtually isolated. The wind reached a velocity of 125 miles an hour and the Civil Hospital, railway station and Customs house were levelled. Nearly every other structure was destroyed or unroofed. Eighty-seven persons were killed when the Civil Hospital collapsed according to wireless reports. Reports from the site of the wrecked radio station, where a pan-Ameri-can aeroplane engine is providing power to work the radio plant, tell of appalling damage in the city of Tampico, which was wrecked by a hurricane travelling at 115 miles an hour on Sunday evening, blowing itself out in an hour. The populace became panic-stricken, and thousand were washed out of their homes. Thousands are missing; many are under the ruins of the city, threequarters of which was destroyed. It is believed it is the greatest disaster in recent Mexican history. The Secretary for the Interior, Senor Edouard Vasconcelos, said the number of dead as the result of the hurricane cannot be stated exactly from Tampico itself. The military chief of the district lias reported by wireless that three-quarters of the city has been destroyed and many are dead and injured. Tampico is a city of 70,000 inhabitants nine miles from the Gulf of Mexico.