GREAT HURRICANE.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 996, 15 September 1903, Page 4

GREAT HURRICANE.

AWFUL DEVASTATION IN WEST INDIES.

By Telegraph

(Per R.M.S. Sierra at Auckland.) San Francisco, Aug. 27. Jamaica was swept by a hurricane on August 11. A despatch from Kingstor# says “ There are heartrending scenes all over the island. At Port Antonia thousands of homeless and starving people sought shelter in an old prison and a few other buildings that survived the hurricane. Others cower in the ruined walls and dismantled piazzas. The railroad sheds and waiting rooms are filled with women and children. Merchants are feeding the hungry to the best of their ability, but tho majority are subsisting upon unripe bananas, boiled over open fires made from tho debris. This is the sole supply of food, and will soon be exhausted at other ports. In tho interior the distress is equally acute. Scarcely a peasant home is standing. The stone houses of the planters were mostly unroofed, Rude sheltors have been made, but owing to the torrential rainfalls these are insufficient. The hospitals in the wind-swept regions are filled with injured. Many lives were lost. The property loss is estimated at 15 million dollars.

A despatch from Martinique states that the sugar cane, cocoa, and coffee crops there are a total loss. Fruits and vegetables were all destroyed, and thousands of houses destroyed. The damage extended to the Morican coast, and in somo instances 200 miles into the interior. The people of the afflicted regions have asked that American breadstuff's and other supplies be sent to them, and the American cities responded promptly.