TONS OF DUST

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1935, Page 18 (Supplement)

TONS OF DUST

BIG STORM IN AUSTRALIA. SNOW ON ALPS COLOURED. Australia has had a dust-storm week. It was not so devastating as the dust storms which swept the United Statgs, but it distributed 10,000,000 tons in South Australia, and blew 100,000,000 more out to sea. From that it appears that it< was the north wind which brought it from the mid-Australian desert, as it brings dust even into the streets of Melbourne. Melbourne received some of it on this occasion, but northern Victoria more. On the Australian Alps the snow was coloured red, brown and pink with central Australia’s leavings.

Queensland and New South Wales did not escape. Sheep were buried in sand. Lights had to be lit at midday. But South Australia was held up by nearly a foot of dust in the streets of some of its towns, trains were delayed, houses were covered inside and out by layers two inches thick. A gale drove the dust before it.

Unlike America, Australia cannot lay the blame on the denudation of forest land, though the forests of the Commonwealth have been recklessly destroyed in many places. The visitation must be laid at the door of the desert interior, which has had no forests within historic time.