OFF COAST OF BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1929, Page 11

OFF COAST OF BRITAIN

SEAS MOUNTAINS HIGH

DAMAGE TO SHIPPING

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.

LONDON, Bth December.

■Wild gales continue in Northern Europe, giving liners bound for English ports the most terrific voyages during recent years. The velocity of the wind sometimes has been as much as 10S miles an hour. Many Channel lifeboats are out and harbours are crowded with damaged craft.

The steamer Britannic was adrift yesterday off the Pembrokeshire coast in the hurricane, which prevented the approach of a tug. French reports state that several steamers are in imminent danger off the coast of Brittany. The Italian cargo vessel Chieri sank, and six of her crew were rescued from rafts. The Cunarder Lancastria, en route to New York, was struck by lightning on Saturday. Her wireless and other electrical apparatus was disabled. The While Star liner Homeric was hove-to for some hours. Her promenade deck, which is GOft above the waterline, was swept and damaged. The dry dock Vulcan, of 11,000 tons, which tugs were towing from Hamburg to Eotterdam, was caught iv the tempest, broken asunder, and sank. Two of the crew perished.

The. ill-fated Badyr was the only steamer to put out from Cardiff in the teeth of Friday night's gale. The wireless operator Meredith was sending out an S.O.S. -when the vessel foundered. His Vas the only body to be washed up.

The steamer Leonardo da Vinci, which is bringing Italian art treasures for the London Exhibition, in a wireless message, says she is quite safe and holding her own iv the Bay of Biscay against the severe gale. She expects to reach London on Thursday afternoon. High -winds caused a rapid rise in the Thames, and considerable floods in the Maidenhead area and elsewhere. The Air Ministry predicts a continuance of the fierce weather.

The Channel coasts are strewn with wreckage, and the seas are lashed mountains high. The wind has left a trail of desolation across Southern England, trees being uprooted, including sixteen giants at Hampton Court, over 200 years old. Telephone wires are wrecked and walls levelled.

The Boulogne steamer services have been suspended since Friday, and the Channel Islands have been cut off for four days. Wireless stations are picking up streams of messages reporting damage and distress. The Tasmanian Transport reached Falmouth with her cabins flooded and boats smashed. The Valacia, bound from Antwerp to New Zealand, wirelessed that the ship was unmanageable 7 and had stopped until the gale moderated.

Two seamen, going home for Christmas leave, were washed off the destroyer "Walpole, between Portsmouth and Chatham, and drowned.