A TERRIBLE HURRICANE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 309, 20 October 1888, Page 3

A TERRIBLE HURRICANE.

Details of the cyclone, or, more properiy> hurricane, which occurred on the island o* Cuba, September 4, show an awful destruction of life and property. The total damage is estimated at $10,000,000, and over 800 persons lost their lives. Thousands of persons are homeless and perishing from hunger. The Spanish Government hu\e distributed $20,000 among the sufferers. The greatest damage caused was at Sae;ua and Isabella, where over one thousand dwellings were destroyed. Here the sea rose six icet, and many of those who escaped deatn from the flying Umbers were drowned. The loss of life in Sagua alone was over 400. A passenger train in Isabella, running thirty miles an hour, was caught by the wind. The lails were benf as if they were hairpins, and the train was precipitated into a marsh, which completely covered it. Seventy-two lives were lost. In Cinadad, Aqua, over one hundred houses were destroyed. In Caibarieu the damage is enormous. The total number of lives lost is unknown, but seventy-three bodies were recovered up to September 14th. In Vuelta Abago over three thousand houses, shanties and other small buildings were totally destroyed. Ten thousand people are left homeless, and there is great misery. The lighthouse situated on Cayo Frances was completely demolished, and the lighthouse keeper and two men drowned. The gunboat, Lealtad, in port at Bartobano, foundered, and nine of the crew, including the captain, perished; the Spanish warship Jorge Juan, in port at Havana, also lost several men by drowning. The city of Cardenas is in a fearful condition : the losses there will reach a million. A village called Pueblo Nuevo, in the neighbourhood of Sagua, was literally obliterated. Nob a vestige remains.