THE HURRICANE AT THE ISLANDS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 62, 14 March 1906, Page 3

THE HURRICANE AT THE ISLANDS.

HOUSES AND TREES LEVELLED

SCHOONERS LOST AT SEA

PLUCKY NATIVE DIVERS

[press association.l AUCKLAND, March 14. The Taviuni this morning brings particulars of the hurricane and tidal w&ve in the Society and Tuamota Islands. The first indications at Tahiti were a falling barometer on the 6th, followed by an increasing sea, which, by the evening of the 7th, was breaking over the foreshore and road. At midnight the houses on the strand had to be evacuated amid great confusion and the screaming of women. The residents, with the plucky assistance of the natives, made for the higher ground. About 7 o'clock on the morning of the Bth the seas reached their maximum height. Houses that had withstood the earliest assault were washed over entirely or broken piecemeal. The subsiding of the sea was followed by a suctaen cyclone at 8 o'clock, which levelled the trees in the park like a firing party. It lasted but a few minutes, with a return of ten minutes. At noon the cyclone passed. The only white casualty reported was the drowning of M. Leboloch, the caretaker of a small island in the harbour.

Papeete itself suffered to the extent of £120,000, and the whole island to the extent of £180,000. Three schooners are believed to have been lost at sea during the cyclone. Reports brought by the ivarship Zelee from Tuamota and the Low Archipelago show that they suffered much more severely. The small islands of Vaero and Hikvieru are said to have disappeared. The seas swept right over many islands, the natives taking refuge in cocoanut trees and schooners. At Taaeti six lives were lost, including Father Paul, the Catholic missionary, who, after holding for some hours to a tree, fellinto the waves and was drowned. Ninety-five persons were drowned at Anaa Island. Where wag once the beautiful district of Tuirire was reduced to bare coral strand. At Motutonga, where there were six deaths, it is reported that two native divers are said to have saved lives by swimming for twelve hours in a lagoon and diving under the big waves.

It will be some time before the full extent of the damage to the Tuamotas is known.