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Show TORNADO WRECKS EASTERN CITIES MANY LIVES ARE LOST AND MUCH DAMAGE IS DONE AS WIND GOES THRU ILLINOIS : Dead Fill Emergency Morgues; Injured Fill All Available Buildings; Relief is Pouring In Carbondale, 111. More than half a thousand persons are known to be dead and conservative estimates place the total loss of life at from 900 to 1000 as the results of the tornado which devastated a score of Illinois and Indiana cities and towns on March eighteenth. In addition to the loss of life, between be-tween 2000 and 3000 persons were injured, in-jured, scores of them probably fatally. fatal-ly. Other thousands were made homeless home-less and property damage estimated at between $7,000,000 and $8,000,000 was caused by the freakish play of the elements. Twenty-four hours after the catastrophe, catas-trophe, the federal government, state, Red Cross and private institutions and individuals combined In the herculean her-culean task of caring tor the injured, giving shelter to the homeless and hunting for bodies yet concealed in the flattened debris. Improvised morgues in a dozen little lit-tle towns and village were packed to the doors with long llaes of the victims vic-tims of the tragedy who throughout the day had remained uncared for except ex-cept for the essential ministrations of the hard-pressed morticians. The neglect was due not to lack of reverence on the part of the mourning mourn-ing loved ones, but to the fact that the needs of the injured and dying engaged the immediate attention of the bereaved survivors. In many of the towns where the tornado struck rescue workers toiled in utter darkness, searching for otTier victims, while inadequate corps of doctors and nurses with limited supplies sup-plies ministered to the hundreds of Injured by improvised lights. Further relief on a wholesale scale was In immediate prospect. In addition addi-tion to a company of troops at Murphysboro Mur-physboro and one at West Frankfort, company I and company K of Salem and Cairo, respectively, were ordered to Wrest Frankfort, and company L of Hillsboro, a medical detachment of the One Hundred and Sixty cavalry, and a medical datachment of the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth infantry were sent to Murphysboro. From Chicago a medical regiment of 300 men. eleven carloads of supplies, sup-plies, eight carloads of rations and sixty Pullman cars were dispatched to the stricken district, while extra nurses and doctors hurried here late from Chicago, St. Louis and other near-by cities. The disaster apparently fell most heavily upon people of limited means, women and children. In the long lists of identified dead the names of very few persons who had attained prominence were found. Murphysboro, West Frankfort. De Soto and Gorham, all within a radius -f twenty-five miles of Carbondale, in the southern Illinois soft coal fields, bore the brunt of the disaster. i |