NEW HEBRIDES DAMAGE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17738, 26 March 1932, Page 13

NEW HEBRIDES DAMAGE

DETAILS OF HURRICANE “DAY OF AGONY” SYDNEY, March 10. Scenes of destruction in tin* New Hebrides and New Caledonia, following the recent hurricane, wore described by passengers of the French steamer La I’erouse. which arrived at Sydney yesterday. The total damage in the New Hebrides and New Caledonia is estimated at nearly £500,000. Forty per cent, of the coconut trees were snapped off near the ground in some districts. Houses collapsed and their occupants had narrow escapes. The islands of Epi and Malekula suffered most severely. Noumea escaped the full force of the hurricane. Settlements on the other side of New Caledonia wore not so fortunate. Thousands of trees were destroyed and houses were flattened.

At Nemeura the danger was heightened by a tidal wave. A number of horses and cattle were caught up by the wave and carried along a creek. When the gale subsided, the horses were found safe throe miles away, but the cattle had been killed when their horns caught in the forks of trees. Writing from the island of l’aama, which was swept by a disastrous hurricane on February 23, the Rev. M. Prater, a Presbyterian missionary in Hie New Hebrides/described the day on which the .island was devnsted by the hurricane as a “day of agony.” Air. Prater said that, in his 32 years’ experience in the islands, he liad never known anything to equal the hurricane. The wind was like hissing steana and the noise of the rain was deafening. ’Ten village schools and two stores had been 1 destroyed. One native had been killed and several injured by falling trees in the village of Aulip. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the day of the hurricane the barometer registered 28.45 in. when the verandah roof at the rear of the mission house began to lift in the wind. Mr. Frater made an effort, to batten it down, but, while at work, the gale stripped the roof from the house and there was no shelter anywhere.