GALES AND FLOODS AT HOME.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1089, 31 March 1883, Page 1

GALES AND FLOODS AT HOME.

The London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus writing on th 2nd of FA) ruary says . Since the date ol my last letter, those islands Inve b>-en visited by a series gales of almost unpreci-d -nted severity. Duri g the par of last week there were considerable atmospheric depressions, which led to some s iglit dislurlances in the weather. On Thursday evening a terrible hurricane arose, which raged fiercely all night. Then ensued a lull till the approach of Friday evening, when the gale .sprang up again, and made a fearful nighiof it. Then another interval of compar tiv calm on Sdunlay, succeeded by a- otter violent ombreakas ni.,o: came ,m. Tsame extraordinary changes w ic ,-xpei ■nc ■! on Sunday, followed on M mday by several hours of rainfall of tropical violence. By this final paroxysm of fury the elements seemed to have exhausted themselves, and we have since had a season of frosty tranquility. But it would require columns to chronicle the disasters by land and sea, in town and in country, which h»d been wrought hy wind or rain or flood during those a"ful four nights. There have been numerous wrecks off our coasts end in some of our large rivers, accompanied by great loss of life. Lifeboats, when engaged in tbe work of rescning perishing seamen, have been swamped and many of iheir crews drowned. Factory chimneys have been blown down ; the gable ends of bouses have been driven in ; rivers have been swollen to destructive overflow ; large tracts of low-lying country have boon inundated, towns and villages fl ode I, bouses washed or blown down, simp windows burst in, railways devastated, telegraph poles and wires Swept down, roofs of mills factories and dwelling. bouses torn ofi' by llie icy blasts; and worst of all, scores, perhaps hundreds, of human lives have bean sacrificed.