MOUNTING TOLL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 201, 15 July 1936, Page 9

MOUNTING TOLL.

THE AMERICAN DROUGHT

FIFTY DEATHS AN HOUR

CHICAGO, July 13. Fatalities in the fortnight’s terrific nation-wide heat wave neared 1600 to-day and hope of early relief was shattered as the week-end rains fizzled out. .Michigan leads in human losses with a total of 365. and Illinois i. second with 200 deaths. Fifty persons died hourly in the United States during the daylight hours to-day. Wheat, fluctuate.l widely on conflicting reports, finishing weak alter recovering its initial lossflS. Although failing to break the drought, the week-end rains greatly benefited the North-West, aiding crops and pasturage and lifting the fire scourge. It is officially announced at Washington that Dr Rexford Tugwell and other high officials are leaving bj aeroplane to-morrow for Bismarck (North Dakota) to prepare plans to turn large areas of wheat lands into pasturage and to remove a considerable pari of tlie population. The officials, on returning, will tour the region where the drought has been most severe. It is reported that thousands of families are using war bonuses and trekking cast and west to desert the “dust bowl.”