THE CYCLONE IN BENGAL.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 74, 3 April 1877, Page 3

THE CYCLONE IN BENGAL.

The cyclone appears to have been the greatest calamity of the kind known to history. Calamities of far less extent have stamped themselves upon the imagination of the world, and live in popular tradition as typical illusfrationsof the fearful power of destruction which lies dormant in nature. The great earthquake at Lisbon, for instance, has acquired a supreme notoriety among such disasters. Upwards of 50,000 persons are said to have been swallowed up in Lisbon alone, several other cities in the Peninsula suffered severely, and the destruction extended to Morocco and Madeira. But the loss of life in the present instance seems to have been far greater and equally sudden. Its full extent is equally as yet unknown, but it can hardly be estimated as falling much short of half-a-niillion lives. An enormous storm-wave is described as having swept, with scarcely any warning, over the islands and lowlying lands at the mouth of the Ganges and Brahmapootra. The population of three of these islands alone is estimated at i>40.000, and barely a fourth of them are believed to be surviving. But, in addition to this, the wave swept over the mainland to a distance of five or six miles from the coast, and it is believed that wherever it passed not one-third of the population is surviving. All this frightful destruction came upon the people without warning, in the dead of night. Up to eleven o'clock on the evening of the catastrophe there were no signs of danger ; but before midnight the storm-wave surprised the people in their beds. It is described as sweeping over the islands to a depth, in some places, of 20ft., completely submerging them. Only one refuge was available. In these districts it is usual for the villages to be surrounded by dense groves, chiefly cocoa and palm; and those that could reach their branches seem to have had the only chance of escape. Almost every one perished who failed in reaching trees. A natural instinct was to seek refuge on the roofs of tbe houses, but the waters burst into the houses, tore oft' the roofs, and carried them miles away, generally out to sea, and a few are said to have been thus carried across a channel ten miles wide to the mainland. But the vast majority was never heard of again. The cattle were all drowned, the boats swept away, and tbe ordinary means of communication thus destroyed. The European residents have shared in the general destruction, almost all the civil officers and police officials in the principal islands having perished.— London Times.