STORM IN SYDNEY.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2695, 13 July 1923, Page 7

STORM IN SYDNEY.

SENSATIONS IN HARBOUR. SYDNEY, June 23. A spell of crisp -wintry weather, during which the rainless stretch which started early last summer, being relieved only by a passing deluge about two months ago, has continued, reducing the soil to bonc-dryncss, and bringing ever nearer the spectre o.f a water famine in the city, was suddenly terminated with a storm of extraordinary violence on Tuesday. Rain started to fall in torrents almost all over the State on Monday night, and by 4 a.m. a gale was raging and howling along the coast at the rate of 70 miles an hour. With unabated violence the cyclone swept over the city until the day was advanced, downpour after downpour drenching the pedestrians, who had almost forgotten how to protect themselves against such volumes of water. Early in. the morning rush to tho city the steamers whi h daily carry thousands of people from Manly to tho city, a trip of about five miles, involving a crossing immediately inside the heads, had to be stopped owing to the narrow escape from disaster of one of them. Mountainous seas were rolling through the great gap in the heads, and breaking in clouds of foam on the Middle Head, inside tho harbour. In tho track of these the bravo little steamers ploughed her way head on. In the middle of tho crossing, however, passengers on the upper deck saw a succession of three great rollers come bounding along from tho ocean. Over the first the Burra-bra rode well enough., but the second was upon her while she was still in the trough-like wake of the first, and as tho passengers afterwards related, she was-struck and enveloped in a towering wall of green water- Windows and doors were smashed in all directions, drenched passengers sprawled about clinging to anything they could grasp, and all for some moments was shattered glass, spray, and rushing water. Four of the passengers had to be conveyed to the Sydney hospital when the steamer reached the Circular Quay, a forlorn spectacle which wars quite an object of curiosity. Fortunately no serious injuries were caused, and tho immediate stoppage of the service prevented a repetition of the perilous adventure, residents having to make a long defour by tram in order to reach the city. As well as this, several steamers broke from their moorings, and narrowly escaped disaster on the rocks. Some small craft wore swept ashore, and the great floating crane Titan, with the boilers for tho new steamer Fordsdalo, which is under sonstruction for the Commonwealth Line, met with a similar fate, being driven on to. the rocks at Woolwich. A few miles down the coast, just beyond the Botany Bay opening, the coastal steamer Belbowric went ashore in the early morning. She is on a sandy bottom, and hopes arc entertained that she may bo refloated. She is a twinscrew steamer of 218 tons, and has been, carrying general cargo and coal between Sydney and south coast ports of New South Wales for Kirton and Earnshaw, of Sydney, for the past H years. The country districts have benefited almost all over the State to the extent of up to 4in of rain in three days.