A SERIES OF DISASTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8930, 20 December 1887, Page 5

A SERIES OF DISASTER

GREAT LOSS OP LIFE. I

N \ FIRES AND PLO 0D S&

[rbuter's telegram.] 1 Sydney, December 191' i Telegraphic advices from Port Ken--nedy (Thursday Island) report the! arrival of the s.s. Fairlie at that place* from Hongkong. She brings news of, a number of extremely fatal disasters' which have occuried within Chinese; territory and waters. The steamer Wah Yung, which sails under the British flag, caught fire when lying within 220 yards of the shore#' Upwards of 100 persons from the burn-: ing vessel managed to effect a landings but about 400 persons perished by drowning, among whom were 20C small-footed Chinese women, who were ( accommodated below deck. } The military magazine at Amoy ex<l ploded with terrific violence, a Chinese general and 50 soldiers being blown to atoms. Four hundred houses in the l vicinity came down with ft crash, burying the inmates in the ruins. Concurcently a fire broke out, which spread from the debris in all directions, and destroyed upwards of 300 other buildings. ( An alarming epidemic of typhoid fever prevails at the town of Borfc Arthur, Over, two thousand deaths have already occurred. Hoangho (Yellow River) broke its! banks in the vicinity of Ching Chow, and inundated an enormous area of country. Thirteen cities are sub-: merged, and the loss of life and property is fearful, the distress of the survivors being indescribable.