WEST INDIES HURRICANE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9847, 14 September 1903, Page 2

WEST INDIES HURRICANE.

TERRIBLE bEVASTATION : THOUSANDS OP PEOPLE HOMELESS. (Per S.s. Sierra at Auckland.) , SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 27. Jamaica was swept by a hurricane on August 11. A despatch from Kingston says: — ''There are heartrending scenes all over the island. At Port Antonia thousands of homeless and starving people sought shelter m an old prison and a few other buildings that> survived the hurricane. Others cower m the ruined walls and dismantled piazzas. The railroad sheds and, waiting rooms are filled with women and children. Merchants are feedr ing the hungry to the bust of their, abP lity. but the majority are subsisting upon unripe bananas, boiled over open fires made from the debris. Tin's is tlie sole supply of food, and will.- soon be exhausted at other ports. In the interior the distress is equally acute! Scarcely a peasant home is standing. The stone houses of the plantera were mostly unroofed. Rude shelters have been madep but owing to the torrential rainfalls these are insufficient. The hospitals m the wind-swept regions are filled with injured. Many lives were lost. The property loss is estimated at 15, million dollars. A despatcli from Martinique states that the sugar cane, cocoa, and coffee crops there are a total loss. Fruits and vegetables were all destroyed, and thousands of houses destroyed. The damage extended to the Mexican coast, and m some instances 200 miles into the interior. The people of the afflicted regions have asked that American breadstuffs .and dther supplies be sent to them, and the American cities responded promptly.