A Terrible Disaster.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 838, 23 March 1888, Page 28

A Terrible Disaster.

The storm of Friday last ■appears to have travelled over a greater part of the Colony, and has left a terrible mark in the Hawkes Bay district. The settlement or township of Norsewood, inhabited by steady, industrious Scandinavians, and situated in a densoly-timbered .locality between "Waipakurau and Woodyille,

has been the Beene of a dreadful calamity. A portion of a clearing was being burnt off when the gale arose and tbe wind carried the fire into the midst of the township with such fury that human help was impossible. Churches, stores, public buildings, private houses, hotels, were rapidly destroyed. Men, women, and children had to fly for their lives, saving little beyond the clothes they wore. Then as the darkness came on the gale increased to a perfect hurricane, and the scene must iiave been a terrible one : the fugititives hurrying along the bush roads, homeless, nfielterless, and completely ruined ; the fierce fire behind them, roaring like an angry ocean, leaping from tree to tree, and laying low co?g, homes, the work of years, of toil and privation; and then, to-“*oud Mo their terrors, the heaviest thunderstorm of the season broke over their defenceless heads. The vivid lightning flashing continuously overwhelmed the light, from the burning bush, and with the loud deep-toned peels of thunder must have struck fresh horror into the hearts of the poor, homeless wanderers. Such a disaster overtaking a hardworking community, whose members during the past ten years have laboured early and late in turning a primeval forest into comfortable homesteads, must strike a sympathetic chord in every heart. The fruits of many years’ labour swept away in one afternoon, the people cast adrift without shelter, without money or tools, should appeal with irresistible force to tbe whole Colony, and elicit a response prompt and decisive in the shape of immediate and generous assistance. We can Dot afford to let' these sufferers starve. Although born of alien race, they have adopted this Colony as their home, and are part and parcel of ourselves, and upon the colonists they now depend for a time for bread for themselves and their children. We truly sympathise with these unfortunate settlers in their great distress, and trust that the necessary help they so urgently require will be speedily rendered them. A subscription list has been opened at the New Zealand Mail office, and any donation, however small, will be acknowledged in these columns, and duly forwarded.