TRE CYCLONE AND STORM WAVE IN INDIA.

Manawatu Times, Issue 34, 14 February 1877, Page 3

TRE CYCLONE AND STORM WAVE IN INDIA.

215,000 PEOPLE PERISHED. The brief telegraphic notices of the appalling loss of human life, caused by the cyclone and storm wave m Eastern Bengal on 31st October, are fully borne out by the accounts contained m the latest Indian papers. The following details are extracted from a minute by Sir Richard Temple, the LieutenantGeneral of Bengal, dated 21st November, 1876. After stating that on hearing of the calamity he at once hastened to the cyclone-stricken districts, his ExceU lehcy continues : — Enclosed is an estimate of the probable number of lives lost (all, or nearly all, by drowning), prepared by Mr Breverley and myself from our own data, compared with local reports, oral and written, and based on the returns of the Jast census-. It will be seen that we apprehended, that m an area of some 3000 square miles out of 1,062,00 persons suddenly thrown into more or less

danger, 215,000 must have perished. In some villiages 30 per cent, of the inhabitants were lost, m others 60, and m some even 70 per cent. There was a severe cyclone m the Bay of Bengal on the night of 31st October. But it was not the wind which proved destructive, though that was bad enough ; it was the storm wave, sweeping along to a height of from 10 to 20 feet, according to different localities : mpi aces where it met with any resistance, it mounted even higher than that. The Neacolly people think it came from the sea right up to the great river( Megna) with salt water ; that then the cyclone turned out, and rolled the fresh, water from the river downwards , that with this reflueuce there was a piling up, as it were, of fresh and salt water, venting itself by a rush all over the surrounding tracts. In the evening the weather was a little hazy and windy, and had been somewhat hot ; but the people, a million or thereabouts, retired to rest apprehending nothing. But before eleven o'clock the wind freshened, and about midnight there rose a cry " The water is on us." and a great wave several feet high burst over the country. It was followed by another, and again by a third, all threerushing rapidly southwards, the air and wind being chilly cold. The people were thus caught up before they had time to climb to their roofs, and were lifted to the surface of the water, together with the beams and thatches of their cottages. But the homesteads are surrounded by trees — palms, bamboos, and a horny species called Madar. The people were then borne by the water to the tops and branches of these trees. In the most cases they would show us the particular tree on which tEey stuck, and generally the survivors pointed to the severe scratches they received from the prickly branches of the Madar trees ; m reality these horns or prickles held them tight, as if with natural grappling hooks, and prevented them from being borne away. The mode of habitation is m this wise : — Each hamlet consists of four to six houses (to each house a family) these are built on a slightly raised platform, composed of earth thrown up from the surrounding ditch, they are surrounded by a wall of trees, high, and dense. It was this formation, unvarying m kind, but varying m degree that prevented the loss of life from being universal. Indeed, the trees with their long stretching arms, held up the poor drowning souls. In those hamlets where the trees grew thickly, many lives were saved ; m those hamlets where there were breaks or gaps m the environment most of the inhabitants perished. The bodies of the lost were carried to considerable distances, so that they could not be recognised. Most homesteads have dead strangers lying about, washed m from distant villages. The corpses began to putrefy before the water cleared off the grounds, so that" they are all left unburied (m a Mahomedan population there is no ci*emation). They are indeed, masses of corruption -which no one can bear to approach, and they present a sickening spectacle. Mixed with human bodies are those of cattle, all heaped up together. The smell m many places was distressing to I us as we walked through the fields from village to village. Weather-tossed seamen m the Bay of Bengal saw many corpses floated out from the land by the seashore of Chittagong : and living persons were borne thither across an arm of the sea, clinging to the roofs or beams of their own houses, as if upon rafts. The force of the inundation appears to have lasted from about midnight to 2 a.m., that is for two hours, by daybreak there was much subsidence of flood, and by noon next day the survivors had come down from the trees and regained terra firma. But they must have been foodless and shelterless for the rest of the day and all the next day. After that, however, they began to reassemble, not at the ruins of their homesteads, which had been completely carried away, but at the sites and foundations. They took out their grain stores buried m pits ; dried those which were wet, the sun having come out m the cleared sky, and cooked such as were undamaged. At every homestead which I visited I found the people drying their grain. They also made frameworks with broken branches over which they threw sheets and cloths such as they had about them at the moment, and so made little tent-like habitations. Plantain trees abounded, but the fruit was mostly destroyed. The cocoanuts, however, frequently stood through the storm, andmusthave afforded some sustenance. There must have been much trouble about water at first. But either the drinking tanks speedily recovered from the brackishness left by the salt wave, or else the storm wave must have mainly consisted of fresh water, for the drinking tanks were not brackish when we tasted them a few days afterwards. It was a great relief to find such was the case. The streamlets which carry off the accumulated water were flowing black and thick with putrid substances. Tne wealth lost was almost entirely agricultural — crops or cattle. To this there is one notable exception, namely Dowlutkhan, a rich trading town, clean destroyed, with miscellaneous property and valuable records. Approaching the place we steamed for two miles through a creek, the banks of which were strewn with human bodies, floated up and down by the tide. I give this outline of the case judging by what I saw of it, and by what I heard from those who were m it. The local authorities did all they possibly could, and some of them did a great deal. The immediate obstacle was the difficulty of communication. Still day by day, sometimes hour after hour, officials, non-offi-cials, messengers, guards, and supplyboats arrived 'at some point or other of the wide and scattered scenes of the disaster.