TOWN WIPED OUT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 7

TOWN WIPED OUT.

INHABITANTS LOST. Florida Death Toll Reaches 2000. DAMAGE OVER £5,000,000. (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) (Received 10 a.m.) WASHINGTON, September 24. Red Cross officials who are engaged on relief work in Florida consequent on the depredations of the recent tornado and floods, declared that the conditions in the Lake Coeechobee regions surpass the horror of the World War. The wholesale cremation of bodies is now taking place there. With the discovery that the town of Pelican Bay and 250 inhabitants had been obliterated the death toll is now placed at 2000. Disease is reported, to be almost checked in the refugee camp near Palm Beach where 15,000 homeless Floridians are herded, but influenza and typhoid are said to be ravaging the outlying districts, particularly in the Overglades area, where thousands of destitute negroes are being innoculated and afterwards rushed to a separate refugee camp adjacent to Palm Beach. A group of 72 business men have an estimated loss to their commercial property along Palm Beach county in excess of £5,000,000. MIAMI REPORT. DEATHS STATED TO BE 2200. (Australian Press Assn.—United Service.! (Received 11 a.m.) MIAMI, September 24. The chairman of the Red Cross here announced on Monday that the dead numbered 2200, due to the fierce hurricane that raged in that quarter.