FIERCE GALE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 671, 25 October 1933, Page 5

FIERCE GALE

(Press Assn.-

SWEEPS MELBOURNE CAUSING MUCH DAMAGE SOME NARROW ESCAPES

-By Telegraph — Copyright) .

Melhourne, Oct. 24. A windstorm of exceptional violence caused damage in every suburb of Melbourne and many country districts. Houses and other premises were unroofed, fences levelled, trees uprooted, and hoods torn from motor cars. The gale also caused interruption to the telegraphic services, and electric light wires were dragged to the ground by flying roofs. Severe gusts carried moving cars across the roads. Several accidents have been reported. Residents in some suburbs say tbat even their houses were shaken. Wrenched from its position by the ?;ale, a large piece of timber crasbed from the wall above the judge's bench while Mr. Justice McFarlane was addressing the jury in the Criminal Court and struck a policeman on the bead and another man on the shoulder. The former was stunned. Tbe mooring lines of tbe liner .Ballarat, consisting of four manilla ropes and two steel bawsers snapped. The vessel drifted rapidly away from the pier, the gangway crasbing against tbe side of the ship. The Ballarat later was tied up again. The velocity of the wind reached 59 miles an hour.