STORMS AT THE ISLANDS

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13293, 23 May 1907, Page 5

STORMS AT THE ISLANDS

NATIVES SWEPT TO SEA

Press Association-By Telegraph-Copyright SYDNEY, May 22.

The storm at the Caroline Islands (not the Solomons) burst- without warning carrying everything before it. Natives were swept to sea and tidal waves inundated the coastal villages. A TOWN DESTROYED. GREAT DAMAGE TO PLANTATIONS. FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE. Received 12.40 a.m.. May 23rd. • SYDNEY, May 22. Letters received by German residents of Sydney give further details of the hurricane at* the Caroline Islands. Oleai and Ifalulc appear to have been the centre of the disturbance, which raged with terrificfurv. Other principal islands of the group also suffered severely, but the people of Ponape. Ruk, Yap and Pelew escaped. According to an officer of the German surveying corvette Planet, which was despatched wi li assistance to the distressed islanders, not a house remains standiing on Oleai. and every cocoanut palm has been stripped. Two * hundred persons were drowned at Oleai, and 25 natives perished at Ifaluk. While the hurricane was at, its height a tidal wave swept Oleai. The German Commissioner was visiting the island at the time, and his schooner was blown to sea. Eventually he reached the island of Saipan in the Marianne. group. The Resident Commissioner at Saipan at Biceorganised a relief expedition, but for this probablv the whole survivors at Oleai would have perished of starvatiin, as no boat was due to call at the island for four months. The island of Mokemok suffered coasiderablv. all the food supplies being des-l'oyf-d. " Th.'. Plane), rescued one hundred natives from this island and took -them to Yap- to save them dying from, starvation.