A Dreadful Night.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5, 27 April 1914, Page 5

A Dreadful Night.

COOK ISLANDS DISASTER.

IN THE HURRICANE’S TRACK.

[Per Press Association.] Auckland, April 27. An Aitutaki (Cook Islands) correspondent writes “The night of January 9th, 1914, will be ever remembered at this island as the date of the severest hurricane that has occurred here for the past 50 years. “The damage done is very difficult to estimate, but it will be not less than £50,000. 'Hie orange crop was totally destroyed, and there will be no export of oranges from Aitutaki for 1914. There is not a banana tree left standing. The cocoanuts stood the hurricane well. Thousands of trees have gone, but many thousands still remain standing. “Not twenty houses on the island are now intact. Amongst other buildings destroyed are the Government Courthouse and Post Offices, the trading stores of the Cook Island Trading Co., of Messrs dagger, Hervey ami Miller, and others. The churches of the London Missionary Society at Vaipai and Tautu were unroofed, and the native houses have been almost totally annihilated. Only an odd house here and there remain standing with its roof gone. “No lives were lost, the Natives lading themselves under fallen trees and under the floors of demolished buildings during the height of the storm.”