GREAT DISASTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1922, Page 5

GREAT DISASTER.

A TERRIFIC TYPHOON. THOUSANDS DEAD. 'TERRIBLE WRECKAGE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright. New York, August 13. The New York World publishes the first detailed cable account of the Swatow disaster. It was the most terrific typhoon ever experienced on the China coast. The loss of life is now estimated at 100,000, but it will take weeks to ascertain the exact extent of the calamity.

Warnings early in the day of August 2 indicated the approach of a storm, and all the shipping, including the sampans and junks, in which half the population live, sought shelter in the harbor. The typhoon was raging at its height by night, the wind blowing a hundred miles an hour, with deluges of rain. A huge tidal wave carried by the wind swept the neighboring country and towns were Jiterally swept away as far as 200 miles inland.

In Swatow the scenes resemble Ypres. The storm destroyed all food stocks and water supplies. Thousands of the dead are collected unburied in the temple compounds owing to lack of coffins. Shippers suffered heavily. Five ocean liners were driven ashore, three hopelessly stranded inshore. All the small craft housing 50,000 natives, were wiped out and all the piers and pontoons wrecked, making it impossible for relief vessels to land supplies. Bwatow is under ten feet of water, the is full of floating dead bodies and famine is raging.