THIRTY KILLED

Hokitika Guardian, 28 September 1932, Page 5

THIRTY KILLED

IN TERRIFIC HURRICANE. HEAVY DAMAGE IN WEST INDIES (United, Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) fßai-mVed this day at 9.25 a.m) SAN JUAN (Puerto Rico), Sept. 28. At least thirty persons are known to have been killed in a terrific hurricane which raged from eleven p.m. on Monday to/ 2.3$ a.m. on Tuesday. The full force' of the 120 m.p.li. wind struck before midnight, causing property damage even greater than the disastrous amount of damage done in September, 1928.'

Hundreds are injured, and thousands are homeless. Most of the dead, according to the first reports, are in smaller' outlying towns, such as Barrios, Sabanallana, Catano, Rio Pierras. ,

Here in the city, the loss of life was materially reduced by the police who took the precaution of rounding up hundreds of women and children and removing them from their homes to safety in more' substantial churches and school buildings.

Villages, consisting mostly of flimsy homes, had no such protection, and even in Ban Juan homes were unroofed by the hurricane, and the torrential rain poured in.

A quick survey indicated that at least eight hundred of a thousand dwellings on the ocean front were destroyed or. uninhabitable.