FEB 5
New North Sea Gales Revive
Terror for Victims of Flood
NEW YORK TIMES
By The Associated Press.
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, Feb. 4Fresh gales in the
North Sea loosed new terror tonight along flood-ravaged coasts
of Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. High winds, high tide
- "and rain threatened to expand
the havoc wrought by week-end
storms that claimed nearly 2,000
lives.
Amid winds up to fifty miles an
hour, a driving rain broke over
the devastated area of the Nether
lands hardest hit of the three
kingdoms. Gale warnings went out
to all Britain's east coast. Thou
sands of families whose homes so
far had escaped damage were
under orders to get set for hurry-
up evacuation. Belgian coastal
dwellers were warned the night's
winds would be violent.
Against the sea's rising chal
lenge, rescue work and reconstruc
tion operations went on. Thousands
of men, mud-caked and weary,
struggled to finish repairing bro
ken dikes before their hard gains
were wrested away. Thousands of
others battled to reach storm vic
tims still isolated in the flood
zones.
The revised three-nation death
list, as compiled from official
and reliable unofficial quarters,
mounted to 1,783. The Netherlands
counted 1,223, Britain 546, Bel
gium 14.
Storm highlights from the three
nations follow:
ENGLAND
The rising River Ouse tore a
forty-yard gap in its banks, threat
ening 35,000 persons living along
a fifteen-mile stretch from King's
Lynn to Downham Market. Con
voys of trucks loaded with granite
rushed across the countryside from
Nottingham in an attempt to fill
the breach.
Many persons living in a low-
lying danger zone fled from their
homes on the heels of Government
warnings that the fresh storm was
heading south, kicking up high
seas. The King's Lynn police su
perintendent, F. A. Calvert, said,
"There is a very real danger."
The Air Ministry warned that
gales were expected along the
whole of the east coast, from the
islands north of Scotland to the
Strait of Dover.
Blustery winds reaching up to
sixty miles an hour struck the
Yorkshire coast some distance
north of King's Lynnat nightfall.
The tide swirled up six inches
higher than normal at Bridlington,
in Yorkshire.
Britain's Home Secretary, Sir
David Maxwell Fyfe, told the
House of Commons that the spring
tides to come with the new moon
(10 days hence) threatened more
danger for a nation plagued by six
months of disasters sea, train,
fog and air.
"Notwithstanding the strenuous
efforts that are being made," he
said, "the damage is so extensive,
it will not be possible to complete
all the work by the time of the
next high tides, beginning Feb. 14,
and there are areas of special dif
ficulty where defenses are still
under water."
Known American dead in the
English floods mounted to fifteen
with the recovery of the bodies of
two women, a United States air
man and a boy. Three others still
missing are believed dead.
BELGIUM
Lightest hit by the first storm,
Belgium might suffer considerably
if the situation worsens. Troops
worked into the night to build up
broken dikes against the sea. A
quarter million sandbags already
ha.ve been dropped into place and
450,000 more are on hand.
In the port .city of Oostende,
iwhere seven died, soldiers worked
repairing the seawalls and torn-up
streets, filmed by oil and garbage.
Electricity and telephone services
have been partly restored.
Young King Baudoin, who toured
the devastated area Monday, went
to the French Riviera for a ten-
day stay.
THE NETHERLANDS
The new storm menaced the ef
forts of an amphibian rescue
£orce, which is laboring heroically
to save the lives of thousands of
men, women and children still
trapped on broken dikes, trees and
roofs. By boat, truck and heli
copters they have rescued many of
the thousands marooned, but the
task is by no means ended.
The full extent of the destruc
tion inflicted on South Holland,
West Brabant, South Flanders and
the twenty-three Zeeland islands
still is unknown. But the loss in
human lives, property damage,
cattle, crops and farmlands will
run into hundreds of millions of
dollars.
The calamity is bound seriously
to affect the Netherlands' con
tribution to the defense of West
ern Europe. It is likely that as a
result of the crushing blow she
will have to revise sharply the
estimates of what she can give as
a partner in the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization and a pro
spective member in the European
Defense Community.
This will be one of the prob
lems discussed with United States
Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles when he arrives in the
Hague Friday in the course of his
ten-day tour of Europe.
The Government broadcast
urgent warnings tonight to all in
habitants of the polders who so far
have refused to quit their homes
to do so at once in view of the new
storm threat. A polder is a clear
ing of land entirely surrounded by
dikes.
Sunday was proclaimed as a day
of national mourning. Queen Juli
ar.a. will address her subjects by
radio.
Upward of 100,000 persons are
taking part in the mammoth res
cue operation. Among them are
16,000 Netherland territorial sol
diers, several thousand American
troops from the United States zone
of Germany, British, French and
Canadian engineers, Red Cross
workers and volunteers and Ger
man, British, and Belgian boatmen.
