TIDAL WAVE AND HURRICANE AT FIJI.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1169, 15 January 1880, Page 2

TIDAL WAVE AND HURRICANE AT FIJI.

[by telegraph.] Auckland, January 14. By the schooner Meg Merriles, from Fiji on 3rd inst., it is reported that the tidal wave and hurricane at Fiji on the 11th ult., did great damage, and caused serious loss of life. Amongst the drowned were M'Pherson of Tairunee, J. B. Grundy, manager to W. Bailey, S. Winter; and two Fijians were lost at Bau in a half decked boat, three Fijian men and three women were drowned in a canoe at KLuru, two natives were drowned and every house blown down; at Radman and. Madroch the whole country is denuded of timber, and the native food crops destroyed. The steamer Go-ahead, engaged in towing a number of logs for the construction of Nichols' patent slip, had to cut them adrift to secure the safety of the steamer, and the progress of that muchneeded work at Levuka has been retarded in consequence. The schooner Stanley, of Queensland, 113 tons register, caught the full force of the gale. She had 150 Islanders on board for Fiji, who were kept under battened hatches for 30 hours, with neither air nor food, and some of them suffering from dysentery at the time. Fifty subsequently died, and one committed suicide on being discharged from Levuka Hospital. Ten more deaths were expected, H.M.S. Emerald, which had on board Sir Arthur Gordon and suite, eu route for Ratotumate, encountered the cyclone off that island, but managed to weather it safely. Strange to say, the wind was in a very different direction at that island from what it was at the Fiji group. Ratotumate suffered in consequence.