GALES IN BRITAIN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17143, 27 December 1929, Page 5

GALES IN BRITAIN

STORMY CONDITIONS CASUALTIES AT SEA (British Official Wireless.* Her. 10 a.m. RUGBY, Dec. 26. fetormy weather during the week-end caused several casualties at sea. The small steamship Lairdselm capsized in Loch Ryan, near Stranraer, yesterday, and sank. Her captain and crew of 16 took to the boats and were saved. So hurriedly had the crew to leave the ship that many of them were scantily clothed. Inhabitants on the shore attended to their wants. Large quantities of cargo are being washed ashore between Dungass and Sandgate. It is thought that the cargo is from a submerged wreck broken up in gales of last Friday night) and 'Saturday. boisterous gales, hail and rain were the main ingredients oil the Christinas weather, though there were occasional bursts of sunshine between the rainstorms. Christmas, however, was snowless throughout the country, though there was icy sleet in the north-east of Scotland, and gales in the Scilly Isles of 75 miles per hour, and elsewhere high velocities causing the Orkneys and other northern areas to miss the Christmas mails. University students and school children were unable to reach outlying districts for Christmas, owing to the suspension of the sea services. The cross-Channel services, however, operated as usual. . Mr. MacDonald is spending Christmas at Lossiemouth, but he returns to London in the second week of January. •The English Channel was swept by a sudden heavy gale, forcing many vessels to seek port. The storm was of terrific violence throughout the southern islands. List night the streets of the towns and villages were strewn with tiles and slates blown from the roofs of houses. Hundreds of trees were uprooted and the lowlands badly flooded. News from Vigo states that the Norwegian steamer Asland sank off Bayonne, 20 being drowned.'