BERLIN PEOPLE IN PARLOUS STATE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5329, 15 February 1947, Page 5

BERLIN PEOPLE IN PARLOUS STATE

(Press Assn —

INDUSTRIES FLAGGING transport, fuel and food shortages

-Rec. 9.30 p.m.)

BERLIN, Feb. 14. Special emergency bodies have been set up in Berlin to plan relief measures to meet the fuel crisis there. The Lord Mayor of Berlin has said that without help, JBerlin could not carry on. Many people were dying of diseases which could have been pr.evented if they had been, better fed7 The Lord Mayor -said that a lot of Berliners no longer wanted to live, and the number of suici'des was in-' creasing*. g Berlin radio reported that yesterday 10 people were found-. dead in the eity as the result of cold dr starvation. The German news ag'eney in the British zone reports that '500 people are in Berlin hospitals suffering from fi'osthite and 30,000 more are being attended as out-patients for illness caused hy the -coM. The food shortage with lack o-f transport, has shut down the bulk of the country's industrial" production. An American military government spokesman said that the United -States zone industry was working at only about a-quarter of its present capacity. Conditions in the British zone were similar, and reports from the Russian zone also indicate drastic cuts in output. -Spokesmen say. that the present conditions mig'ht last -until the spring, and even then recovery would probably be slow because they would have to accumulate reserves of stocks of fuel and raw materials before factories were re-opened. A Wellington message reports that the Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Clinton Anderson, may visit Europe to investigate the food situation in the countries where supplies are short.