A TERRIBLE STORM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3195, 21 May 1909, Page 5

A TERRIBLE STORM.

OVER THREE HUNDRED HOUSES DESTROYED. SEVERAL PERSONS KILLED. By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, May 20. News from Tonga sta f e3 that a hurricane swept the island of Niaufoou, on April 13th. It 'completely destroyed the plantations and totally wrecked over three hundred native | houses and several churches, includ- j ing the big buildings erected by-the \ Free and Wesleyan Methodists, the latter being carried bodily away. The village of Hafoe, on the coast, suffered most, not a house being left standing. A family of six, including four children, fled from a wrecked dwelling before a howling storm, amongst a hail of timber and corrugated iron. All were injured. One j little girl, aged twelve, was struck by a sheet of iron, and completely decapitated. Her head was found two days later in the distant bush. The mother and the other three children were killed outright by flying timber, and the other died from injuries next day. The damage is estimated at over eight thousand pound?. The plantations will not recover for about three years. | It will probably be necessary for the Government to send food supplies. Captain Anderson reports that he sailed from Haabai for Niuafoou on the evening ot tiie 13th, and arrived at Niuafoou on the Sunday following. A scene of desolation met his eyes. In the chief town of Agaha, where the principal stores are, the destruction was not so complete as in some of the smaller villages, which are perched along the edge of the cliffs. These were exposed to the full strength of the hurricane. The stores of D. H. and P. G. Known, a German firm, were not much damaged. A shed, which contained twenty tons of copra, was blown bodily across the road, with its contents. A 400-gallon iron tank, full of rain water, was blown some miles. A buggy shed and buggy disappeared. Where sheets of corrugated iron have been torn from the roofs ar.d driven along the ground there are furrows left like those in a ploughed field. To quote Captain Anderson's description: "Niuafoou looks now as if four or five warships had*"aid in the offing and shelled the island for hours."