DEATH AND RUIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10645, 19 July 1920, Page 6

DEATH AND RUIN

A TERRIBLE TORNADO WHOLE TOWN WIPED OUT. Death and wholesale ruin have been tho harvest of two tornadoes which swept over eight American States. Scores of people were killed, hundreds injured, and thousands robbed of their homes, while the damage is counted in millions. These tornadoes were the culmination of a scries of storms which had been raging for a week across the United States. y FEARFUL DAMAGE.

Whirling in a huge cone-shaped cloud from the west, at a speed of B 0 or M miles an hour, tlio northern. visitation cut a wide zig-zag swathe of ruin through the States of Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Apparently its fury was concentrated around Chicago. In its wild course it wiped several villages off the map. | Solid brick - and stone structures, such I as churches and public buikfinss, were crushed into heaps of debris, and many fires were started. Wooden dwellings were t\Visted from their .foundations and wore turned upside down or whirled about like so many sheets of paper. In most cases the great wind came in a sudden darkness that shut out the sunlight, or else it wasi preceded by a torrent of rain. That great wind passed on as swiftly as it had come. For 40 miles around Chicago it left a belt of ruined suburbs, towns, and villages. Elgin City, which topographically is to Chicago what St. Albans is to London,' suffered severely. There alone the daraaga was estimated at £1,000,000. A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE. A theatrical company was rehearsing when the theatre fell in on them, and two members were killed. In the First. Presbyterian Church tho minister I had just concluded his sermon with the "strangely prophetic exhortation to his congregation to be prepared, "for they knew not when they should be called." His hearers, numbering one thousand, were about to leave when the 6torm broke. Many worshippers remained to take shelter from the rain; and 75 [ children were in the basement schoolroom when the roof of the structure collapsed,, but, as if miraculously, only three persons .were killed. One family was seated at table in the dining-room on the ground floor of their house when, in a twinkling, the house was lifted clean over their heads, and whisked out of sight, leaving them exposed to tho torrent of rain, but unhurt.

Edgerton, Indiana, with a population of 500, was virtually destroyed, and in Ohio the towns of Swanton, Greenville, the Raabs Corners were razed. Soldiers were called out to guard the .Melrose Bank, which had , its roof blown off, and their orders were to "shoot to kill" if any looting was attempted. So far 33 is known, the number of dead is as follows: —Ohio, 26; Indiana, 27; Michigan, 9 Atlanta (Georgia), 78; La Grande (Georgia), 50; Alexander City (Alabama), 11; Agricola, 5; West Point .Milner, and Madon, 1 each.