LATER PARTICULARS.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 203, 30 December 1893, Page 2

LATER PARTICULARS.

SIXTEEN PEOPLE DROWNED. DESPERATE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. Melbourne, This Day. The news of the wreck of the Alert caused a great sensation, especially as there was only one survivor, and he was not in a condition to give details. It took some time to revive Ponting. A Newfoundland dog was induced to nestle down by him, and its warmth restored the man to life Ponting says the; had bad weather all the way, and at 4. 15 an enormous sea swept everything moveable overboard, poured down the skylights and put out the fires. The steamer lay helpless, and the captain called all hands on deck with lifebelts, but scarcely bad they obeyed when another wave buried the vessel to the gunwale and she sank beneath their feet, leaving them struggling in the water. Ponting got hold of a hatch for some time, but lost it and took to swimming. He saw the steward drown without being able to help him. Hour after hour passed, the Gaptain swimming strongly, but the latter did not answer a hail. He then got hold of a cabin door and Btuck to it all night. He felt himself growing colder and colder, but at daybreak he touched a sandy bottom, struggled on shore, and fainted. He knew no more till he saw his rescuers around him. Later particulars show that the Alert left Bairnsdale, in the Gippsland Lake District, on Wednesday evening. There were three passengers—James Newton, a clerk in the Treasury Department, and two men whose names are unknown — one of them a friend of Captain Mathieson's, and the other a steerage passenger. Ponting, ;the sole survivor, was washed ashore amid a quantity of debris. A terrible sea was running, which frequently washed him off his frail support but being a great swimmer, he always succeeded in gaining his hold. There were 17 men on board all told.