CYCLONE IN NEW CALEDONIA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2031, 10 April 1890, Page 1

CYCLONE IN NEW CALEDONIA.

Melbourne, March 27. New Caledonian papers report the occurrence of a frightful cyclone on the 4th inst., which raged with such violence in Noumea that all business was suspended, and the inhabitants were in continual fear of seeing their houses blown away by the violence of the hurricane, which came up from the south-east, increasing in velocity from four in the morning until raid-day, when it abated for a time. Roofs were blown off; sheets of zinc went hurlingthrough the air in all directions, frail constructions were swept away like so many cupboards. Stronger dwellings creaked and groaned like living things m agony, and by the afternoon the aspect of the town was one of desolation. The very newspapers were unable to appear, for at any moment the offices, machines, compositors, printers, and cases of type might become a mass of “pi.” The sacristy of the Church of the Conception was ruined. Torrents of blinding rain drove people indoors, where they barricaded their doors and windows, and remained in fearful apprehension of what might follow. Telegraphic communication with the interior was cut off by the blowing down of poles and wires, and the plantations of sugar cane and bananas, as well as the gardens outside Noumea, were completely devastated. The sea presented an appalling spectacle, and the roar of the waves beating in thunder on the shore could be heard far inland. The steamers in harbor got up steam, and prepared for the worst. The number of casualties among the smaller craft around the coast was very great, while two vessels which arrived from the Loyalty Islands on the 13th instant state that the cyclone prevailed from the 3rd to the 1 Oth, It reached its maximum of fury on the Bth, the rain falling in cataracts and waterspouts, and drenching the unfortunate crews, who were running short ef provisions, and who scarcely hoped that their vessels could live through the stress of a tempest which lasted for a whole week. A melancholy list of maritime disasters, attended 1 with loss of life, is reported. From the interior of the island come tidings of floods having supervened upon the tropical rainfall,