HURRICANE IN THE CAROLINE ISLANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 144, 20 June 1899, Page 2

HURRICANE IN THE CAROLINE ISLANDS.

AN AMERICAN WHALING BARQUE

WRECKED.

FEARS FOR A MISSION VESSEL,

GREAT DESTRUCTION OF PRO-

PEBTY.

The Caroline Islands have been visited by a severe hurricane; causing great destruction of property. An account received at Sydney by the isr land mail steamer states :—' The biggest storm ever known recently passed over the Carolines. At Kusaie it carried away two miles of the coral reef and turned the lagoon into a boiling cauldron. Houses were blown down, cocoanut and breadfruit trees were torn up by the roots and the waters were backed up until the town was flooded. Drs. Channon and Rife, the missionaries, with their wives and families were compelled to flee to the hills, and Mrs Oleane and another woman missionary nearly lost their lives. I was off the group in the trading vessel when the hurricane came down and I never saw such a blow before. Luckily we were under snug canvas, but even that was blown to shreds and we had to scud under the bare poles. The next trader that goes to Kusaie will hardly recognise the place and the crop of copra will be light for several years owing to the number of cocoanut trees that were blown down.

Several vessels were reported missing at tine islands, and the missionary schooner Hiram Bingham, was, it was surmised, lost during the storm. Another vessel, the American whaling barque Horatio, was wrecked, and the crew were taken on to San Francisco by the American barquentine Ruth. The Horatio attempted to reach an anchorage without a pilot, and crashed on to a 'hidden reef and became a total wreck.

Captain E. J. O'Keefe, a well-known trader in the Caroline Islands, was missing. He went away for a cruise in one of his vessels and was three months overdue according to latest advices. His people had almost given him up as lost, but were hoping against hope that he might have been wrecked on one of the other islands. At one of the outlying islands known as Luk, a tribal war was raging. The natives had stolen a missionary's boat and burned his house down. The rival missions, it is stated, were the cause of all the trouble.