SCORCHING HEAT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22468, 11 July 1936, Page 13

SCORCHING HEAT

AMERICAN DROUGHT TOTAL DEATHS NOW 215 ratEAT DAMAGE CAUSED RECORD TEMPERATURES By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received July 10, 5.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 9 Scorching heat, borne out of the parched drought areas in the Middle West, l>roke all the existing temperature records to-day in New York. Reflected heat from the pavements in Times Square sent the mercury up to 115 degrees. Tn the man-made canyons in the financial district, heat waves blurred the view of buildings. Five people died from heat. The entire eastern section of the United States is sweltering. So intense is the heat that draw-bridges in the States of Xew York and New Jersey have been buckled through expanding beyond the designed limits. The only relief reported to-day was of dubious value. This was an electrical storm of tropical fury which caused great damage in southern New England. A message from Chicago states that the total deaths from heat rose to 215 to-day as abnormal temperatures spread eastward. There were scattered showers, the heaviest falling at Effingham, Illinois, where the total fall was 2.42 in. This was hotb tantalising and ineffective. The damage caused by the drought on the western prairies of the United States is estimated to have reached 200.000,000 dollars. Forest fires continue to break out. Wheat prices rose to-day in Winnipeg one to 1 1-18 cents a bushel. In Chicago the market finished § to If cents above yesterday's closing price. RELIEF MEASURES MORATORIUM ON LOANS PROGRAMME OF WORKS (Received July 10, 5.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 9 The Government to-day declared a moratorium of one year on rural rehabilitation loans aggregating 7,000,000 dollars to !10,000 farmers in 268 drought-stricken counties. At the same time it extended the Works Progress Administration's emergency employment programme for the benefit of 20,000 sufferers in seven southern States—North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia and Alabama. Officials state that President Roosevelt is preparing to submit to the next Congress a long-range programme for converting the worst areas in the parched wheat country, known as the "Dust Bowl" to pasture land, and for settling many of the present inhabitants elsewhere.

Mr. R. G. Tugwell, Under-Secretary of Agriculture, says he will tour the stricken north-west before completing arrangomeuts for grants to the sufferers. Three thousand workers are about to begin the Construction of a lake of 20 square miles which is to be known as the "Lac Qui Parle" project, in Minnesota. The National Resources Committee, headed by the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. H. L. Ickes, reports that the Great Plains area can bo prevented from becoming a desert if a comprehensive soil programme is fully instituted within 10 years. Big game animals in the national parks—bison, elks, antelopes and deer —are threatened now by parched pasturage and next winter they may lack hay. • _____