FURIOUS GALE

Southland Times, Issue 22492, 29 January 1935, Page 5

FURIOUS GALE

BRITISH ISLES

MANY ROADS BLOCKED BY SNOW

WIDESPREAD DAMAGE

(British Official Wireless.) Rugby, January 27. A furious gale, reaching 86 miles an hour, accompanied by storms of snow, sleet and hail, is sweeping the British Isles. The gale started early yesterday and is still continuing inland. The wind uprooted trees, tore down telephone wires and electricity cables, in one case in the path of a train, and demolished hoardings and chimneys. Many roads were blocked with snow, of which showers occurred in the London area and heavy falls in the northern and east counties. Several fishing vessels round the coast were unable to reach shelter before the storm broke and were in distress, but no lives have been lost. Among the many acts of heroism reported was that of a doctor and a nurse who crossed 10 miles of a raging sea x with an 80-mile blizzard, blowing to help an injured man on one of the Shetland Islands. The wind reached 90 miles an hour at Ilfracombe (Devon) this morning, smashing the Arcade, which is in the main shopping centre and doing much damage to houses and fishing craft. Old residents describe the gale as the worst within their memory.

GAS TANK ON FIRE

A DESPERATE FIGHT. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) London, January 27. Guards were forced to precede the trains and scrape the snow and ice from the electric rails before contact could be established. The drivers of buses in the West End had to shout the destination as the destination boards were obscured. A most dramatic feature of the snowstorm was the firemen’s desperate fight to check the flames of a burning tank of crude gas at Wapping from reaching nearby containers. They decided that it was not wise to cut off the gas source, Stepney, as it would not only plunge the East End into darkness but would empty the mains which would soon be filled with air, threatening a terrific explosion. The police therefore ordered the residents nearby to leave their homes. Hundreds of families trudged through the snowstorm. Meantime searchlights were played on the burning tank. Exhausted through the cold, a number of firemen who were relieved every two hours maintained a continuous wall of water between the tank and the adjacent containers while workmen dug up the roads to reach the fifteen-inch mains feeding the tank. Then they drilled holes and inserted rubber bladders which, when pumped, blocked the mains without emptying the pipes. The fire was later extinguished. The residents will probably return to their homes to-day. CARS ABANDONED SHIPPING AT A STANDSTILL. (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright). (Rec. 10.45 p.m.) London, January 28. There is more snow throughout Britain and hundreds are skiing and toboganning on the outskirts of London. Coastal shipping has been brought to a standstill by the gales and traffic slowed up on the icebound roads and cars abandoned. Telephone and electric lines and trees are dovzn in the country. Paris is all white and 4500 persons are engaged clearing the streets. In Yugoslavia the railways are blocked. One goods train crashed into a ravine while an avalanche fell on another. In Montenegro, the towns are isolated and the newspapers have not been distributed. Another report from Iceland says that a British trawler’s bridge and funnel were swept away and the mate lost overboard. Natives have been frozen to death in the jungle near Karachi. Twenty are dead at Lahore and many are clustering round fires in Bombay streets. Calcutta reports that animals in Bengal have been driven into cultivated areas, herds of as many as 200 elephants being seen. Heavy seas continued on British coasts during the week-end, causing damage to shipping. Several trawlers and other small vessels were driven ashore and the lifeboatmen were on duty in many districts. The Clacton and Walton lifeboats battled for 12 hours in heavy seas in the Channel to save a disabled sailing barge.