SEVERE SANDSTORM

Evening Star, Issue 22443, 14 September 1936, Page 9

SEVERE SANDSTORM

MUCH DAMAGE IM MELBOURNE BOY AND WOMAN KILLED Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright MELBOURNE, September 13. A violent sandstorm with a velocity of between 50 and 60 miles an hour swept Melbourne to-day, resulting in much damage. A boy, aged 10, and a woman, aged 26, were killed on Belgrave Hill, a resort near the city, by a falling tree. Plate-grass windows in several city stores were blown in. A boy, a man, and a horse and cart were blown through a shop window at Port Melbourne. Trees are down across the St. Kilda road and much damage has been done to fences in the suburbs. Two boats are missing at Port Phillip Bay, and yachts were driven ashore and wrecked. The storm arose suddenly and blew with unabated violence all day. Many reports of damage to crops are now coming in from the country areas. The storm is still fierce tonight.

WORST STORM FOR YEARS MANY PEOPLE INJURED. MELBOURNE, September 14. (Received September 14, at 11.5 a.m.) Two people were killed and many injured in one of the worst storms Melbourne has experienced for years. A 64 miles an hour gale smashed the new breakwater and sank fishing boats at Port Arlington, tore roofs from houses in the city and suburbs, uprooted trees, and disconnected the electrical services. At Essenden a child aged 2i years was walking at his mother’s side when a gust tore the baby from the mother’s grasp and blew him 50 yards across a paddock. A woman and a boy were' killed at Belgrave when an uprooted tree crashed on them.

Many persons were rescued from perilous positions in Port Phillip Bay. Four men were eight hours in rowing a boat which was finally driven against Frankton pier. The Queenscliff lifeboat, with a crew of nine men, was out for six hours trying to rescue two men in a disabled launch which had gone to the assistance of the four men in the rowing boat reported above. Eventually, late last night, the launch was blown ashore at Mornington. The lifeboat headed back for Queenscliff, where it had not arrived at a late hour, but no anxiety is felt.