Gale Strikes Samoa

Severe Damage in Aleipata District

From Our Own Correspondent

Apia, Feb. 8.

A STRONG gale struck the Samoan Islands with considerable force on January 16, doing considerable damage to native houses, coconut plantations, breadfruit trees, and especially banana plantations of Europeans and natives.

The Observatory, which had warned coastal shipping to run for shelter, gave the highest velocity of the gale as 54 miles per hour at 4 p.m., while the lowest barometer reading was 29.31.

Bush trees came crashing down and in Apia telephone lines and electric lighting wires were wrecked in many places.

European houses were damaged by fall ing trees, but only one fatality was reported.

On cocoa plantations damage was com paratively small, though quite a number of trees were blown down. Damage on banana plantations, especially those in the hills, was more severe and crops dur ing the next few months will be less than normal.

At Aleipata, the District Commissioner (Mr. J. M. Bower) reported the destruc tion of the native hospital, the wireless station and part of the police post. After the storm the district presented a sorry spectacle, comparable to the desolation caused by a large fire. Trees were blown down on the beach and in the bush, coco nut palms stood nude —bare of fronds and nuts—food plantations were damaged and hundreds of Samoan houses blown down. It is expected that there will be a serious shortage of food in this district.

Small damage is reported from the island of Savaii, which apparently was outside the storm circle.

American Samoa Suffers

According to reports from American Samoa, serious damage was done on Tutuila Island. At the naval station at Pago Pago the gale blew right into the harbour, damaging a number of buildings, caving in roads, blowing down coconut and breadfruit trees, and destroying native houses. Terrified, the natives sought shelter at the naval barracks at Pago Pago. Leone, the most fertile dis trict of Tutuila, suffered considerably, all the food crops being destroyed.

Though no fatalities occurred, the natives of American Samoa will have to depend on relief to tide them over the next few months. The American Naval Administration has started a “Hurricane Relief Fund” in aid of those who have suffered through the disaster.