AMERICAN TORNADO.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 21 March 1925, Page 5

AMERICAN TORNADO.

HORROR OF THE TRAGEDY. GRAPHIC DETAILS. Press Association—Electric Telegraph-Copy rig’. NEW YORK, Friday. Tventv-four hours after the tornado, the details only intensify the horror of the tragedy. In Tennessee lit) persons were killed. Thirty-one towns were completely or partially destroyed, and the damage to property is untold. .President Coolidge immediately ordered the National Red Cross to marshal all its efforts for relief. Alany villages were filled with victims, while makeshift hospitals were founded, physicians and nurses working incessantly. About 150 car loads of supplies and provisions have been despatched to the afflicted centres. Burials in most places will be wholesale, there being neither time nor opportunity for individual interment. The presence of troops proved a godsend, as looting was going on. Six arrests are already reported. The troopers, moreover, pressed sightseers into service with axes and shovels, and as stetcher-bcarers.

Water and light porved two great needs, owing to the severance of all clot ric "ire and broken water mains, which increases the risk of pestilence. The storm came so suddenly that preparation was impossible. This area, which often experiences cyclones, is generally provided with adequate protection in the shape of •‘cyclone cellars,"’ to which people hasten on the first sign, but this tornado caught them unawares. It. is thought the death roll is between 700 and 1000, and the injured over 15000., The wind was freakish, whipping close to the ground at times and then lifting high and carrying debris like a black flying cloud moving with the greatest imaginable rapidity. Isolated rural dwellers suffered great damage, and are virtually without assistance. Hundreds throughout this area are homeless. The month of March —usually bitterly wintry throughout this area—is mercifully mild, thereby reducing the suffering. The. storm came a few minutes before the schools wore let out, and caught the children in the buildings, killing large numbers. Fires are still burning, and. the work of extinguishing them is rendered more difficult by the lack of wafer. — Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn.