A SERIES OF DISASTERS IN CHINA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8075, 10 January 1888, Page 3

A SERIES OF DISASTERS IN CHINA.

Chinese papers received in Melbourne eoutr.m details of several extraordinary’ calamities in Chiun, of which we have had brief news by cable. Abstracts of the more important particulars are appended;—

GREAT EXPLOSION IN AMOY. Telegrams from Amoy, elated November 19, report; — At six B.i-ntes past 3 p.m, to-day a terrible explosion Was heard in Amoy, and at the same time the windows and ceilings commenced to fall in the houses in the foreign settlement. Ou lookiug in the direction of the noise aderk cloud was observed to vise, showing that the powdermagazine situated at Eh-mung-kang had blown up. lu the houses in the foreign settlement at Kulaugsoo there is hardly a sound pane of glass or a whole ceiling. The explosion must have been heard for several miles.

The magazine is one pile of dirt, and everything within a radius of 500yds is a heap of ruins. In the Helds in the Vicinity large banian trees, about Bfc diameter near the ground, are bodily uprooted. After the explosion a fire tool: place through the houses falling, and it speedily burned down about 100 bouses, but was eventually stopped by the sea bench, as the wind was fortunately blowing that way. The people are

very quiet, apparently stupefied by the explosion. Wherever you turn you are likely to see a hand or leg or some other part of a human body. During the fire some wretches were so heartless as to commence looting. One strange thing is that a large joss house near the magazine, with small plaster figures on the roof, has almost entirely escaped. The figures are all intact, but the doors of the joss house were blown in. Otherwise no damage wa? done to the building, although the houses around were completely wrecked. The villiage is now in Hames, and it is impossible to give an idea of the amount of damage. It is reported that there was no less than 700 tons of powder stored. The large fort nearest the village is of a ratter formidable nature, and is well mounted with guns. Close to the forts are a sort of iC-hncd barvaeas »ii winea ibe suuners live. There are generally about ICOO soldiers in these barracks. Provision is made for 5000, but although that number is on the list, four-filths of the men are earning their livelihood in the town, and would form at the most but a reserve to fall back upon. We can only guess at the details of the accident. Judging from the great .-?2? C- _l_2, w-.vv.aU OLlhv a UUtUher of soldiers had been victimised. The flames must have spread from the forts to the village mentioned, which is most densely populated and where a conflagration might entail very serious consequences.

A later message states: — The powder magazine was a large bomb-proof building, covering about three-quarters of an acre, situated to the east of Eh-mung-kang, a populous village of about 2000 houses, mostly inhabitated by fishermen and their families and soldiers attached to the port. There were in the magazine about 150 barrels of gunpowder (some say 5000 piculs), besides filled cartridges, shells, and rockets. At the time of the explosion there were about 40 persons in the magazine, consisting of coolies, soldiers, and cartridge-makers. Of all these men there is not a vestige to be found, with the exception of some pieces of bone and flesh in the surrounding district. The magazine is nothing but one vast heap of finely-powdered earth, with a deep pit in the centre where the powder was stored. Of the outside walls, built mainly of chunam, there are only a few vestiges remaining. In the immediate vicinity of the magazine about 200 houses are in ruins, mostly levelled to the ground, and the people are busy digging out the dead. As a result of the falling houses, tire started in seven different places, and at one time it looked as if there would not be one house left standing. Fortunately the wind fell at about 9 p in., which enabled the people to make some headway in arresting the (lames, which were finally extinguished this morning, but not before over 200 houses had been burned down, making with those blown down by the explosion 400. The remaining houses are so shattered and broken by the shock that about one-half will have to be pulled down and rebuilt.

. .Some of tho scenes are truly heartrending. Ou one pl'ico was a woman bitting by a bundle of mats which contained the dead body of her mother shattered and disfigured by the explosion, in anotht r was a father digging out the body of his child, and at other places the relatives were digging out a whole family. A great number of people were injured by the failing shot from the exploded cartridges, and it was pitiful to see parents carrying their children all bleeding to the city to have their hurts attended to. 1 think that at the outside about 200 persons lost their lives by the explosion and tire, but I don’t suppose the real number will ever be known, ns the Chinese themselves will try to bide the total loss by the disaster. There have been about 50 bodies recovered from the ruins; a great many have been burnt and charred so much that it is almost impossible to recognise them.

THE YELLOW RIVER INUNDATIONS. From memorials recently presented to the Emperor (says a correspondent of tho North China Daily News) one cau gain a very good idea of the general direction taken by the disastrous flood which has issued from “ the curse of China,” though it is impossible to mark the exact area of inundated country. Ou the 30th of September last, under the pressure of an extraordinary freshet, the south bank of the Yellow river gavepvay in the vicinity of Cheng Chow. According io official reports, the breach at first was only 100yds in extent, and the main body of the stream continued to follow its own channel. But the adjacent embankments rapidly collapsed and the gap widened to a breadth of 1200yds, through which poured the whole contents of the river. Cheng Chow itself, which must stand on high ground, seems to have escaped uninjured. Tue flood entering the Chia-lu river, and prevented by hills from extending southward, rushed violently towards the east. Ilali-way between K’ai-fung and Cheng Chow is Chungmow Hsieu. In this district 100 villages were absolutely submerged, aud the lands of 300 were partially inundated. The city itself is reported as being surrounded on ail sides by water, but it is not stated to have suffered damage; rumours, however, from other quarters are current to the effect that the unfortunate town is buried with its inhabitants beneath a lake several yards in depth. It is quite possible that when the memorials were written the encircling waters were only kept out by the walls and barricaded gates, and that since then these defences have yielded to the torrent, and tho whole town has been overwhelmed. Then the flood turned southwards, still follotving the line of tho river, which bends there in that direction, but spreading meanwhile to the east, and invading part of the district of K’ai-fung Fu itself. In its direct course lay Ohu-hsien Chen, one of the great business centres of China, ranking iu importance to Haukow, Fatshan, and the ’pottery metropolis, King-te-Chen. Fortunately Chuhsien Cheu escaped with the loss of only some of its suburbs. Not far south is Weishih Hsieu, which is now standing in the midst of a wide sea. The main stream, 30 miles wide, poured on past Fu-kow Hsieu till it reached the spot about 70 miles due south of K’ai-fung, where the Chia-lu joins the river called on Williams’ map the Ju. Below this point the country is very fertile and densely populated. Increased in volume by the addition of the water-, from the Ju river and its affluents, and unable to escape seawards with sufficient rapidity, the flood rose to au extraordinary height. No less than 1500 villages were drowned beneath its waves, and the loss of human life was incalculable. Thence it hurried on into the valley of the Hwai river in Anhui. Though the Chia-lu river marks the main line of the inundation, still, the country being for the most part level, offshoots escaped into the neighbouring rivers. To the east of Chu-hsien Cheu some scores of villages iu T'ung-hsu Hsien were covered with 10ft of water from a branch which afterwards followed the channel of the Ch’iugkang river and inundated T’ai-kang aud Lu-i Hsien.

Immense damage must also have been done in the province of Anhui, but no memorial recounting it has yet appeared. There is merely a very brief report from the Governor, announcing, with apparently very little foreboding of approaching disaster, that on the 12th October the waters of the Ilwai were rising an inch or two daily, and that on the 15th and 16th they increased Ift. A letter from a Chinese gentleman living near the scene of the inundation says that 5000 men were swept away at one rush as they were endeavouring to stop the great gap, and he adds that another 4000 have been swept away somewhere else in Honan. GREAT FIRE AT SWATOW. The correspondent of the Daily Press gives the following account of the great fire at Swatow :—“ On the 3rd November the largest lire that has probably ever occurred in Swatow laid a great part of the native town in ashes. It broke out about 6 p.m., in a paper shop, and was caused, it is said, by the bursting of a kerosene oil lamp. Three streets, containing several hundred houses—the latest estimate is 800—were burned down, and an immense amount of property destroyed. What could be carried off in time was stored in the Canton Guild-house, which itself had a narrow escape, owing, indeed, its safety largely to the exertions and the fire engines of the foreign residents—the engines of Messrs Jardine, Matheson, and Co., Bradley and Co., Butterfield and Swire, and that belonging to the Maritime Customs doing excellent service, and preventing the fire from reaching foreign houses, none of which suffered. Nearly all the foreigners crossed the river, and stayed there till the fire was got finally under. From this side, Katchio, the blaze seemed, even in the bright moonlight, most intense—like some 20 Black Country furnaces in full blast. So far as is known at present no lives have been lost, and no one seriously injured. Walls had to be battered down and streets torn up to get at the drains. The local soldiery worked splendidly. The loss is variously estimated, but it must be enormous. Probably it is not far short of a million dollars.