The Scope of the Disaster
The amount of damage done by the North Sea
storm cannot yet be exactly judged, but a stag
gering loss is all too clearly indicated. To the
Netherlands it is the worst natural disaster since
the breaking of the dikes in 1421, when 100,000
people died and seventy-two villages were de
stroyed. In common with other catastrophes, it
makes heavy demands on a nation's reserves of
strength and fortitude and affords to the rest of
the world an opportunity to show a correspond
ing generosity.
In Belgium twenty-two people died and some
five thousand are homeless. Premier Van Houtte
has called for emergency appropriations and
asked for generous private donations to relieve
distress. Britain, with more than five hundred
dead, 30,000 homeless, a quarter million acres
ravaged by flood, several east coast harbors out
of use and thousands of sheep, cattle and pigs
lost, has put into effect civil defense operations
that were planned for a war-time emergency.
Blankets and food have been delivered to flooded
communities; troops have joined civilians in
repairing the sea walls; refugees have found
shelter in neighboring communities; the Lord
Mayor of London has opened a distress fund,
J and Prime Minister Churchill has stated that
the disaster will be treated on a national basis.
Far worse, however, is the plight of the Nether
lands, whose government only recently an
nounced that it no longer needed aid in its recov
ery program. One-tenth of its population is
threatened with ruin; more than a thousand have
died; one-sixth of its land has been submerged;
water thirty to forty feet deep has swept in
some places forty miles inland; at the height of
the disaster 50,000 victims had still to be evacu
ated, and an air lift and a bridge of vessels were
working against time to rescue them. Moreover,
now that the dikes are breached, a huge area is
lying open to the ebb and flow of the North Sea
tides. It is estimated that the damage to the
country will run at least twice and perhaps three
times as high as its entire defense budget for 1953.
There is little that can be said or done to
bring light into this black scene. The United
States and other nations are rushing all possible
assistance to the beleaguered countries; the Red
Cross has already sent supplies valued at more
than $250,000, much of it in bedding and cloth
ing. Counterpart funds are to be released by the
Mutual Security Agency for Dutch relief. With
all this is combined steadily mounting evidences
of human sympathy for the victims of the wide
disaster.
