A FIERCE STORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 65, 14 September 1936, Page 9

A FIERCE STORM

MELBOURNE SWEPT

MUCH DAMAGE DONE

TWO PERSONS KILLED (Received September 14, 10.50 a.m.) MELBOURNE, This Day. Two persons were killed and many injured yesterday in one of the worst storms Melbourne has experienced for years. . : A gale of 64 miles an hour smashed the new breakwater and sank fishingboats at Portarlington, tore, roofs from houses in. the city and suburbs, uprooted trees/and disconnected electrical services. At Essenden 'a child aged 2i'.years, was walking at his mother's side when a gust tore the baby from the mother's grasp and blew him/50, yards across a paddock. ;■ , V A woman and a boy were killed at Belgrave Hill, when.!an uprooted tree crashed down on them. ■

Many persons were rescued from perilous positions in Port Phillip Bay. Four men were for eight hours in a rowing-boat which finally was driven against Frankston Pier. The Queenscliff lifeboat, with a crew of nine men, was out for six hours; trying to rescue two men in a disabled launch which had gone to the assistance of those in the rowing-boat. Eventually, late last night the launch was blown ashore at Mornington. The lifeboat headed back for Queenscliff, where it had not arrived at a late hour, but-no anxiety is felt. A violent sandstorm of a velocity of between 50 and 60 miles an hour swept Melbourne, resulting in much damage. Plate glass windows in several city stores-were blown in. A boy, a man, and a horse and cart. were blown through a shop window at Port Melbourne. Trees are down across roads at St. Kilda. There is much damage to fences in the suburbs. Two boats are missing. At Port Phillip Bay yachts were driven ashore and wrecked. I The storm arose suddenly and blew with unabated violence all day. Many reports of damage to crops are / now coming in from , the country areas;