FIERCE AUTUMN STORM

Dominion, Volume 39, Issue 27, 26 October 1945, Page 7

FIERCE AUTUMN STORM

All Europe Under ■Threat. NIGHT OF TERROR IN BRITAIN

(fly Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received October 25, 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, October 25. All central Europe is threatened by a great 90-nrile-an-hour gale, which gave many parts of southern England their third night of terror last night. Continental radio stations last night gave warning after warning of oncoming storms. While the gale-driven sea invaded the land round Britain s shores, piling up masses of wreckage, Europe began to batten down ready to fight the worst weather for 20 years. Gale warnings now cover all the British Isles except the Orkneys and Shetlands. Only the largest vessels were able to move across the Channel yesterday. Smaller ships were forced by high seas to ride out the gale in south coast harbours. Twenty vessels of all nationalities. rolling and pitching oft Ileal, and some dragging their anchors, are under careful watch by the Coast Guard and lifeboats. , . „ Naval bomb disposal squads and fire service parties are anxiously watching the foreshore, where breakers, combined with the biggest tides of the year, are flinging up loose mines, from which several towns have already suffered damage. Damage has also been caused by the sea breaking over promenade walls, flooding the streets and scouring away the foundations ot houses. A whirlwind extensively damaged the village of Titcbfield, iu the Battle of Hastings country. . A steel television mast 150 feet high was blown down and crashed on a row ot suburban houses, smashing the roofs and penetrating the upper story rooms. People in the street had narrow escapes. One of the largest cranes in Erith (Kent), costing £15,000, was blown over and fell on the wharves. At Sandgate the sea tore a gap in the sea wall. Residents were warned to move before the time ot high tide. • . .. Two persons were killed and another seriously injured as the result of damage ctused by the gale, which sometimes reached a force of 70 to 90 miles an hour. A chimney stack was blown over and collapsed over a house at Hastings, killing un elderly woman who was lying in bed. / When an elm tree fell across a school path nt Braintree in Essex a schoolgirl aged 11, was killed, and a schoolboy, aged 14. had both his legs broken.