WORSE THAN WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20112, 24 November 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

WORSE THAN WAR.

TOLL OF HUMAN LIVES.

GREAT STORMS THAT KILL. NATURE'S RAIDS ON MANKIND. The West Indian hurricane, blowing in a fury of 125 miles per hour, which recently devastated Miami, Porto Rico, and the ill-fated Florida coast, came almost at the, end of the " danger season." Another six weeks, and the possibility of such a disaster would huve been veiy slight—at any rate, for this year.

" June—too soon; July—stand by; August—look out you musii; September—remember; October—all over."- So runs the old rhyme, and a very good warning it has proved. In 1926 the same coast was struck by a tornado, which killed 1,000 people, destroyed the homes of another 40,000, and caused nearly £30,000,000 worth of damage before it blew itiielf out. Fire, landslides, and tho terrible tidal waves, which accompany these storms have again taken their toll of life and property.

Not a single crop and very few buildings in tho- island of Porto Ri co remain undestroyed.

• It is a strange thing, S;iys an English writer that, though hurricanes have often killed more than battles, historians very rarely consider' the outcome of Nature's war on mankifid w6rtli recording.

In the Battle of Blenheim 17,000 men were killed. In the Backergunge cyclone, which visited the Ganges delta im 1876, 100,000 human beings we:re drowned in the tidal waves that swept over the land, and as many more died as a result of tho pestilence and famine that followed after the waters. Everybody has heard of the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, but how many people know that there was such a diaster as tho Backergunge cyclone only 50 years ago ? Tho only time that great storms are recorded in history is when they have played an active part in the sea fights of the world. We <ill know of- the storm, which wrecked tho galleons of the Spanish Armada after Drake had harried them. And this is not the only occasion on which Spain suffered at the hands of the tempest. After the renowned fight of the Revenge, in which Sir Richard Grenvillo took on a Spanish fleet of fifty-three ships single handed and sank five of them, a great storm sprang up. It wrecked the remainder of the Spanish ships and the treasure fleet, which they were escorting. So the little Revenge was mightily avenged. The most terrible natural disaster of modern times was the earthquake and

storm that struck Japan on September 1, 1923. It is estimated that 300.000 people lost their lives in this. The typhoon raging at the time of tho earthquake fanned tho flames of the burning buildings, and swept away any shelters that tho Hoeing population made to protect themselves. So great was tho havoc of the storm that experts attributo rnoro Chan half tho loss of life to this alono.

Probably the worst gales that" British folk call to mind was that which wrecked the Tay Bridge in 1879. Tho bridje was known lo bo weak, and a twenty-five miles an hour speed limit had been imposed. But on the night rf December 28, a south-west gale sprang up and blew tho bridge and a train crossing it into tho river. Of tho seventy-five passengers in tho train not one survived.

To this dny wind gauges are kept in constant use on tho Forth Bridge. These show that, during tho last thirty-eight years, tho bridge has had many a hurricane to withstand. But it has. been designed . to, resist wind-storms of 150 miles an hour, and nothing > greater than this is likely to ba experienced in our temperate clime)