A HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 686, 10 December 1909, Page 7

A HUNDRED LIVES LOST.

TERRIBLE COLLISION. SHAKES PULL DOWN TEE VICTIMS. (Vγ Telecroph-Prcie AeocUtlon-CopjrlgbU Port Darwin,' December 9. Details aie to hand of tlio disaster which occurred in Rhio Straite last month, when tho French Mossagcries-Maritimcs etoanior La Soyno, 2379 tons gross, Bank after colliding with tho British India Steam Navigation Company's steamer Onda, 5M7 tone gross. Tho total number of lives lost was 101 (6ovcri • Europeans and fifty Asiatic passongors, nnd ' tho explain, five officers, and thirty-eight of the Asiatic crew). Tho disaster occurred in the early morning. ■, Both vessels were well lighted. The French' " Btearaer went to the bottom in loss than • fivo minutes. So sudden was the catastrophe that there was no Umo to give ordow on , , the French ship, or to have the boats lowered. , Sho wont down liko.a etond, i Tho commander of the Lα Seyne, Captain * I Conailhoo, lost his life.'Tho majority of those I on board were drowned like rats in a trap.. All tho rescued w«ro picked up by boats ' , promptly put out.iby tho Oudu, but if any were not picked up at the moment they must havo met death from sharks or by drown- , Glcndinning, one of tho eailors 6avod, confirms the report that a good many wore pulled down by sharks. There were many of them about. Just as a Malay seaman was being dragged into a boat a shark seized his foot , An engineer heat tho brute off with a boat ' hook. A Malay saved hronty-eight members of the native crow. Fourteen native passengers were rescued. Two hundred bags of mails wew . lost.