SWATOW CALAMITY

Evening Star, Issue 18046, 14 August 1922, Page 4

SWATOW CALAMITY

APPALLING DEATH ROLL.

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND LIVES

LOST.

TIDAL WAVE SWEEPS COUNTRY.

FAMINE REPORTED. Press Association —By Telegraph Copyright NEW YORK, August 13. (Received August 14, at 8.50 a.m.) The Now York ‘World’ publishes tho first detailed cable -account of the Swatow disaster. It was tho most terrific typhoon ever experienced on tho China coast. The loss of life is now estimated at 100,000, but, it will take weeks to ascertain the exact extent of the calamity. Warnings early in the day on August 2 indicated tho approach of the storm, and all shipping, including the sampans and junks, in which half of tho population live, sought shelter in the harbor. The typlmon was raging at its height by night. The wind was blowing at tho rate of 100 miles an hour, with deluges of rain. Later a huge tidal wave, carried by the wind, swept tho reighboring country and towns, and penetrated as far as 200 miles Swatow scenes resemble Yprcs. The storm destroyed all tho food stocks and water supplies. Thousand's of dead bodies winch were collected lie unburied in tb© temple compounds, owing to lack of coffins. Shipping suffered heavily. Five ocean liners were driven ashore. Three were hopelessly stranded inshore. All the small craft, which housed 50,000 natives, were wiped out. All the piers and pontoons were wrecked, making it impossible for relief vessels to land supplies. Swatow is under ten feet of water, and the harbor is fall of floating bodies. Famine is raging.—A. and N.Z. Cable.