500 LIVES LOST.

Auckland Star, Volume IX, Issue 2494, 22 March 1878, Page 2

500 LIVES LOST.

SEVERAL VESSELS WRECKED

By the arrival of the Blanche from Karotonga, we learn that a terrible disaster has befallen Anaa Island, Panmotas Group. A correspondent writing from Rarotonga, on March sth, says: —"One of the Society's vessels arrived from Tahiti yesterday, aud reports that one of the Paumotas lagoon Islands named A naa, has been completely swept by a hurricane or tidal wave; and houses, trees, stores, and inhabitants are all gone. Mr Boosie was resideut agent on the islaud for Messrs Brauders, of Tahiti. He, with a few others, escaped. The greater portion of the Group has been devastated, and it is estimated that between 400 and 500 lives have been lost, besides several vessels."

We have received the following account from an eye-witness at Papeete : — "lam once more in Tahiti. We had a terrific hurricane in the Panmotas, which swept down all our houses and stores, the sea rising on the land and sweeping away everything, and we had to retreat to the highest point of land, which was about 20 feet above the sea level. There we stood like seagulls on a sand bank when the tide is coming in. We expected every minute to be washed away altogether, but fortunately the cyclone abated when the water was within two feet of us, and we were allowed once more to return to life aud the world. The whole of Anaa is a total wreck, and it will be more than ten years before it will be whit it was. I came down to Tahiti with the Resident, and the Government sent a man-of-war, the Gironde, round the Group to find out the extent of the damage. " I went with her, taking a lot of our provisions to supply our different stations. THe island of Kaukura suffered most, losing 117 people, aud all the houses and boats. George, who was in Wilkins and Cos. yard as storeman, and lately in Kaukura trading for them, was amongst the drowned. It would take a long time to describe the whole of the catastrophe, and I find I have not time, as the Gironde is about to sail. Brauder's loss has been very considerable, being 3 schooners, 1 cutter, and 12 small boatn of about 5 tons each ; besides the loss of the whole establishment at Anaa aud also at Kaukura. I have to thank a Mormon parson (native) for saving anything that I have, as I was too busy looking after the property at the time, aud was up to the waist in water in the house when it caved in with a sea. I found that my gun was saved by the same man about two days after I thought it had been lost. All this happened on the 7th February, continuing till the morning of the Bth. Magee was on Kaukura at the time, and was very nearly drowned, being washed from place to place until he had almost reached the reef on his way out to sea. Fortunately he was able to cling to the bigger stone, and hung it out until daylight ; two Chinamengand a halfcaste whom I know were also drowned."

[We take the following with reference tp Anaa from the useful little " Geography of the Pacific Ocean," published by Mr James Adams, 8.A., of the Parnell Grammar School : " Anaa, 16° S. lat., 145i° W. long. —(Chain Island). This is the most populous islsnd of the Paumotu. Group, although by no means the largest. It contains a population of 5,000, and its head chief held sway over ali the islands west of Hau or Bow Island. Tahiti, however, claimed supremacy over the whole. The isiand is one cocoanut grove, and there is also abundance of fish in the lagoon, so that provisions are abundant, such as an atoll affords, viz. : cocoa-nut, paudanus fruit, with large coarse oysters, aud an occasional turtle. The inhabitants are Christian, having been converted from |heathenism by Tabitian missionaries."]