VIOLENT STORM.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12064, 28 May 1920, Page 5

VIOLENT STORM.

Per Press Association.- - CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night. \ tremendous south-westerly gale swept over the city in the early hours this morning, damaging trees, breakin"" overhead wires, and disturbingwhole households .by its extraordinary violence. A policeman on early duty savs that the gale reminded him of the "explosion of a big dump in France The heaviest gusts tore along the streets at a tremendous speed, and to walk against them was all but impossible. At 2.15 a break was discovered in the transmission lines of the Lake Coleridge hydroelectric system, and it was 6 a.m. before repairs were effected and the current restored. Mr Skey, of the Government Observatory, states that during the storm the barometer rose one-tenth of an inch in a few minutes, and the, thermometer seven decrees in three or four minutes. He • believes the gale had the record velocity for these parts. The Government steamer Tutane- j kai. which "left Wellington at 2 p.m. j vesterday for Lyttelton, in order to j bunker on her way to Oaniaru, where she is to pick up thirty hos- j pital patients for Nelson, struck the gale at-1.15 a.m. When opposite the Conwav River the vessel was hit by a westerly gale of hurricane force, which later suddenly veered to a southerlv, again hitting the vessel severelv. Captain Post stated that it I -was the 'severest weather he had experienced on the New Zealand coast. 'T've done a lot of travelling around the South Sea Islands and the Indian Ocean, but never before have I experienced anything like. it. My chief officer, who has travelled the coast for years, says the same."