STORM IN MELBOURNE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22986, 15 September 1936, Page 9

STORM IN MELBOURNE

WORST FOR MANY YEARS TWO PEOPLE KILLED MELBOURNE, Sept. 14. 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 electric services. At Essenden a child aged two years and a-half 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 a rowing boat, which was finally driven against Frankton pier. The Queenscllff 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 Queenscllff, where it had not arrived at a late hour, but no anxiety is felt.