PLIGHT OF BELIZE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20977, 14 September 1931, Page 9

PLIGHT OF BELIZE.

PROBABLE ABANDONMENT. NEARLY ALL HOMES DAMAGED POPULATION MAY BE MOVED. CONCERN OF AUTHORITIES. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received September 13, 10.45 p.m.) BELIZE, Sept, 13. Tho authorities are seriously considering abandoning the town, in which almost every house is damaged, and moving the people to the high plains along the pine ridge.

British Honduras lies on the Atlantic side of Central America, north of the liepublic of Honduras. The total area is 8598 square miles. In the past the colony has escaped hurricanes, and was thought to be outside their track. The coast areas are low and swampy. Ihe population is about 51.400, including more than 400 Europeans and 200 white Americans.

Belize, the capital, has, or had, a population of 19,300. It lies at tho end of a narrow, tortuous channel between reefs, which shelter vessels in the harbour, steamers lie off a mile or more from the shore. The district is malarial and swampv. St. George's Bay is a picturesque little island, much used as a week-end resort, with good boating, bathing and fishing. It was formerly the capital. Belize is said to be so called from the original Spanish pronunciation of Wallace, or Wallis, the name of a Scottis.i Luccaneer, who in 1638 settled with a party of logwood cutters on St. George s Bay. In the 18th century the names Wallis and Belize were used interchange ably for the town, the river and the whole country. . , , . , There is a radio telegraph station at Belize. The Governor is Sir John Bur_ don. There is an Executive Council of seven members, and a Legislative Council of 13 members. . A disastrous hurricane was experienced on September 4, 1930, in the West. Indies, the city of Santo Dnmingo, the most ancient settlement of the white man in the New World, being virtually destroyed when the eastern end of the island of Haiti was swept. The hurricane struck Santo Domingo at 2 p.m. and blew for four hours. Houses in the aristocratic quarter were razed to the ground and the dwellings of the poor simply disappeared on the wings of the wind, -which ble\v a speed estimated at 150 miles an hom. The communications systems of the i.epnblic were totally disrupted. In the neighbourhood of the capital bridges were wrecked, roads were impassable and the telegraph lines simply vanished. A mental hospital was destroyed and the inmates, who escaped, ran wild through the streets. They were recaptured later. In Santo Domingo alone the damage was estimated at considerably more than £3,000.000. The d®maee appeared to be in the city itself, the out lying regions suffering less. It was estimated that more than 4000 people were kiPed and 50.000 rendered homeless. Only 400 of the 10,000 houses in the citv were left standing. Fifty motheis and their new-born infants were killed through the collapse of a maternity homo Manv people were decapitated by sheets of zinc, with which the buddings weie lined. A United States ninr.ne officc. said it was as if a giant hand had smashed the city like a t°v n" cl then stirred the pieces with a stick, there was no water fit to drink, as .the waterworks were demolished and the river was a sea of mud. STORM SPREADING. LOWER CALIFORNIA HIT. INCREASE IN INTENSITY. (Received September 13, 10.45 p.m.) MEXICO CITY, Sept. 12. Despatches to the newspaper Excelsior to-day said the hurricane was lashing the whole of the southern part of Lower California. Trees were uprooted, cemeteries destroyed, and numerous buildings damaged in La Paz, the capital of the southern district of the peninsula. The storm s gnwi-S "• when the despatches were sent.