AN ISLAND HURRICANE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 458, 29 May 1909, Page 4

AN ISLAND HURRICANE.

SIX LIVES LOST. DAMAGE DONE AT NIUAFOOU. A breit telegram informed us on Thuisday ot a destructive storm in the South Sea Islands. Details were sent to the Auckland Herald by its Nukualofa correspondent. He wrote that the outlying island of Niuafoou had been swept by a hurricane on the night of April 13, and that great damage had been done to houses, plantations, and cocoanut trees, and worst of all, that six lives had been lost in the visitation.

Captain Anderson reported that in the chief town of Agaha, where the principal stores are, the destruction was not so complete as in some of the smaller villages, which, on the edge of the cliffs, were exposed to the full strength of the hurricane.

A shed, which contained 20 tons of copra, was blown bodily across the road, with its contents, and a 400 gallon iron tank, full of rain water was blown to a distance of some miles giving a faint idea of the force of the wind. The buggy shed, and the buggy which was in it, disappeared and had not been found up to the time that the Elfried left the island. The big churches of the Free and Wesleyan Connexions were swept away bodily ; in one case the bell being the only thing left to mark the place where the building had stood. Only three churches were left standing in the island, and they are more or less knocked about.

The village of Hafoe, which was right on the sea coast, was the worst sufferer, and there is not a house lett standing. It was here where most of the deaths occurred. A family of six, four of whom were children, occupied a house of native shape, built of timber, and roofed with corrugated iron. When the house began to give way the inmates made a rush for the open, and fled for their lives before the howling storm. The hurricane blew the building to pieces, and there was a hail of timber and flying iron- on their track. They were all struck, a sheet of iron cutting the bead clean off a little girl of 12 years as she ran. When the Native" tound the headless body next da> uey would not bury it im—mplet , and two days elapsed before t. .cvered head was found in - I ; h some distance away. mo.aer and the other three children were killed by the flying timbers, and the father died from injuries received the next day. In a case like this, it is difficult to estimate damages, but those who on the spot reckon that will not cover the destruction wrought by the elements. Three hundred and twelve native houses have been totally destroyed, the number of churches not yet being known for certain. At present there will not be any actual want, as the nuts that are down will be cut up into copra, but in about three months’ time, when this supply is exhausted, and there are no others coming on, the natives will be hard pressed, and the Government will probably have to send supplies of food up for them.

To illustrate the force of the wind it is told that an empty 61b beef tin, evidently picked up from the ground, by the blast, has been carried against the stem of a cocoauut tree, with the sharp edges where the lid had been cut open against the tree. This has been driven so deeply into the stem of the tree that two men could not drag it out. Where the sheets of corrugated iron have been torn from the roofs and driven along the ground there are furrows left like a ploughed field, showing the force that must have propelled them. To quote Captain Anderson’s descriptions “ Niuafoou looks now as if four or five warships had laid in the offing and shelled the island lor hours.”

The last time the island bad a similar visitation was on April'6 1900, but it was not lo be compared with the present one for the amount of damage done, nor the

number of lives lost. The soil of Niuafoou is wonderfully fertile, and the nuts there grow to a tremendous size, the copra being the best that comes from any part of the Tongan or Friendly group.