FIRE ADDS TO TERROR IN STRICKEN CITY OF HANKOW.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 192, 14 August 1931, Page 1

FIRE ADDS TO TERROR IN STRICKEN CITY OF HANKOW.

Plague Spreading, Supplies of Lime held up by Pickets.

(United Press Association.—By Electric Tek^raph.—Copyright.) (Received August 14, 8.35 a.m.) SHANGHAI, August 13. Fire is sweeping sections of Hankow unchecked, the inundated streets preventing the use of means of combating it. ' Plague is spreading.

Huge quantities of lime required for medical purposes are detained by pickets at Shanghai on account of the anti-Japanese boycott. This is on account of the fact that the lime is of Japanese origin.

Hundreds of thousands of homeless people are sheltering on the tops of the dykes, on embankments, or are perched on tree-tops, clinging to their scattered possessions and awaiting the subsidence of the floods, which is unlikely for weeks.

The mail aeroplane from Shanghai, when descending at Hankow, nosedived and broke the propeller when seeking the landing stage. The crew and passengers were rescued. The flood situation at Hankow, following several weeks of rain, has assumed the proportions of a national calamity, affecting millions of people.

The entire city is inundated several feet, the Yangtze River has reached a record level and is in places more than sixty feet above normal, plague is spreading, and there is an adute food shortage. Ten thousand persons have already been drowned, including several hundred convicts who were trapped in prison. Five thousand sampans are replacing rickshaws in the city’s transportation, and business is almost at a standstill. Foreign firms are requesting food from Sharghai, and a 20,000,000-dollar flood relief fund is being opened by the Government.