FIERCE STORMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 587, 13 February 1929, Page 1

FIERCE STORMS

Intense Cold in Great Britain Made Worse by Tearing Gales

SHIP DRIVEN ON ROCKS (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Received 10.25 a.m. LONDON, Tuesday. There is no sign of a break in the Arctic weather. The intense cold is accentuated by snowstorms and heavy gales throughout Britain. There have been most trying experiences by sea and land.

A British Official Wireless message says a small coastal steamer bound for London with a cargo of soda grounded in a snowstorm early this morning. Her crew of 13 was rescued by the Plymouth lifeboat, which spent the greater part of the night at sea. Severe snowstorms were experienced in the south coast counties of England, and road transport was hampered; but the most serious effects of the blizzard were felt in Wales and Scotland. Snow-ploughs were in some cases necessary to clear the railway lines. Pilots on the airways from London to Paris state that the cold in the upper air was the most intense they had experienced in nearly ten years of cross-Channel flying. SHIP FAST ON ROCKS It appears that the cross-Channel steamer Ville de Liege, which went ashore yesterday, is fast on the rocks, but only a small part of her hull can bo seen this morning. Some of her mails were taken off at low tide. An •attempt is to be made later to get her off. The steamer Peel Castle, with nearly 100 passengers on board, was exposed for 16 hours to a blinding snowstorm and tremendous seas on her voyage yesterday from Douglas, Isle of Man. to Liverpool. She was due at the

Liverpool landing-stage at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon, and did not arrive until shortly after one o’clock this morning. The icy gale froze the mixture of glycerine and water which covered her steering-rods when she was off the Bar lightship at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon. The ship was helpless, and was immediately anchored while engineers dismantled the steering gear. This was later reassembled and the anchor was weighed shortly before midnight. 12 DEGREES OF FROST Bitterly cold weather continues throughout the British Jsles. In London last night 12 degrees of frost were registered, and the thermometer has risen little during the day. The cold is accentuated by an east wind. A motor-coach and five saloon cars were caught in a snowdrift on the Bristoi-Bridgewater Road. FREEZING HURRICANE Messages from all parts of Europe disclose the terrible severity of the weather. Trieste had a 90-mile freezing hurricane, as a result of which 600 persons were injured. An avalanche at Innsburck buried five smugglers. The temperature in parts of Rumania is 45 degrees below zero. Whole families have been frozen to death.