STORMS IN WEST INDIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19394, 31 July 1926, Page 9

STORMS IN WEST INDIES.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS. DAMAGE AT THE BAHAMAS. iMANY FAMILIES HOMELESS. NUMEROUS CRAFT SUNK. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. (Received 8.55 p.m.) Renter. NEW YORK. July 29. The disastrous effects of the hurricanes in the West Indies are now beginning to be ascertained. Despatches from Nassau, Providence Island, the capital of the Bahamas, state that the latest estimates of the number of people drowned there place the total at more than 150. The damage is conservatively estimated at £1.600,000. Over 75 boats were sunk or destroyed on Monday and Tuesday in what are described as the worst hurricanes ever recorded in the Bahamas. Many families have been rendered homeless and the public services have been paralysed. The authorities in Nassau have abandoned their efforts to alleviate the existing distress. They have urged the despatch of all available craft to the famous Bahamas sponge beds, for which nearly 200 small sloops and schooners left somedays ago. The majority of the. persons missing are members of the crews of the sponge boats. It is reported that eight large rumrunning vessels laden with an unknown quantity of liquor were hurled cm the beaches of some of the outer islands of the group and smashed to pieces. A report from Havana states that the American mail steamer Orizaba limped into that port this evening. She was damaged while battling with the hurricane from Wednesday evening until yesterday morning in standing by the drifting Italian steamer Asaldo Giorgio 11. Sixteen men aboard the Orizaba were injured. The vessel could not manoeuvre close enough to pick up the crew of the Italian steamer who had managed to launch the lifeboats. Finally the American cargo steamer West Harshaw rescued the shipwrecked men. The Orizaba's cargo shifted on Monday evening and at one time the steamer had a •list of 45 degrees. The third-class quarters were flooded. A message from Santo Domingo states that three schooners bound to the WindWard Islands sank in the storm off Zaona Island. Fifty-four bodies were recovered.