CYCLONE IN AMERICA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2027, 1 April 1890, Page 1

CYCLONE IN AMERICA.

York, March 28. Accounts have reached here of a terrible cyclone which has been experienced in Kentucky, Tennesee, Illinois, and other districts on the left bank of the Mississippi river. The number of persons killed cannot yet be ascertained, but at present it is set down at about 500. The fury of the cyclone seemed to be most felt in Kentucky, where the whole of the Ohio valley is reported to be totally devastated, and to present an awful picture of desolation, The city of Louisville, on the Ohio, is in rnins, the principal buildings and residences having been wrecked by the fnry of the storm. The town hall was struck whilst a dance was going on, the building was completely destroyed, and a terrible scene ensued. To add to the completeness of the disaster the gasometer exploded and three hundred people were killed either by the explosion or by falling debris. The cyclone was felt throughout the fotates mentioned, and nothing is left of many of the smaller towns but heaps of ruins.

Further reports of the cyclone experienced along the left bank of the Mississippi state that the railway station at Louisville was swept bodily into the Ohio river. Iwo thousand houses were levelled to the ground, and trains and trams were blown off the tracks. Owing to the bouses being wrecked the city was speedily in flames at many points, and numbers of unfortunate residents, who were unable to escape from the debris , were burnt to death. A party of Scotch tourists, farmers, and several English travellers were killed. The metropolis of Illinois was destroyed, en gulfing the Catholic Church, which was fall of refugees. The lowlands of Arkansas and Mississipi were flooded, and hundreds drowned, March 29. The tornado affected all the Western States, and was felt worse in the Ohio valley. In Indiana the cyclone swept everything in its path for n width of 500 yards, and the towns of Bowlinggreen, Jeffersonville, and Newport, suffered greatly from the tornado and the floods. The mortality at Louisville is estimated at under one hundred, and the loss to property at 2,000,000 dollars^