DEATH-ROLL IN TORNADO

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24906, 20 June 1946, Page 5

DEATH-ROLL IN TORNADO

50 Now Believed Killed MANY HOMELESS (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 18. Canada’s freak five-minute tornado is believed to have killed at least 50 persons. The tornado struck the American town of River Rouge in Michigan, and the Canadian towns of Sandwich and Windsor in Ontario. A message from Toronto says that the death roll in Windsor is 13. Four of the 33 persons seriously injured are not expected to recover. Two hundred persons were made homeless. One farmer found his 4001 b refrigerator a mile from his demolished farmhouse. In Detroit there was little damage in the main parts of the city, but the police say that the suburb of River Rouge has been laid low. The tornado just missed the huge Ford motor works, which reopened only yesterday after being idle for a month. The tornado was first reported by an airline pilot. He said the tornado was ■moving at a terrific speed. “The cone stretched from the ground to a cloud base about 3000 ft up?’ he added “It would hit the ground and dissipate and then stretch down ana hit the ground again, making whinpools of storm clouds close to the ground. It was twisting and curling all the time. You could tell it would destroy anything it hit”