(J. T. A. Mail Service)
Considerable progress has been made towards providing temporary shelter for those who were rendered homeless by the earthquake, Colonel Symes, Acting High Commissioner said in addressing the second meeting of the General Committee of the Central Relief Loard, held yesterday.
Remediable distress, he said, had been alleviated. Statisties of the damage done were being carefully prepared and it was hoped at an early date the Government would be in a position to review the situation as a whole and decide what wider measures of assistance might be necessary for destincle persons.
“In certain cases special meansures would have to be taken. There was the case of ReEneh in the Nazareth subdistrict, where out of a total of 200 houses. £69 had been destroyed. The Government had under consideration a schemt to help the inhabitants to rebuild the entire village on another more suitable site. In various other places schemes were under consideration for expropriating land and assisting persons whose houses in the old Suk were destroyed to obtain accommodation before winter.
“The demages through earthquake shock in Palestine and Transjordan were unquestionably very great, but it was necessary to add a word of warning against believing the report, often exaggerated, which had been circulated about distress and danger in yartiafaz localities.
“the facts of the situation are that, at the present moment the Government is financing the work of demolition of dangerious structures in towns and villages, organing immediate relief to ## persons, and were preparing temporary housing schemes where requred for the winter. It would be premance to estimate at this stage the money which would altimately be required for these purposes. But it would be wrong to give the public an impression that the Government could thoulder the whole burden of reconstruction. The task of the Government was primarily so help those who are most genuinely in need; and it was important that all those proceed with the work of reconstruction with the resources at their disposal,” Col. Symes said.
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