TYPHOON TERRORS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19946, 2 November 1934, Page 16

TYPHOON TERRORS

GRAPHIC NARRATIVES Captain M. B. Skinner, commander of the steamer Nankin, which arrived at Brisbane recently, gave a vivid description of the scenes in Kobe Harbour during the recent typhoon. The confusion along the waterfront was beyond description. Captain Skinner said. Ocean-going liners berthed alongside Kobe piers suffered severe damage, though they were sheltered by the breakw’aters from the mountainous seas which were running outside the harbour. The America Maru, on the adjacent pier to the Nankin, although stoutly lashed to the wharf and with two anchors down, broke away and collided with the Takusan Maru, which was astern of the Nankin. The Blue Funnel freighter Phemius. after breaking her moorings, drifted helplessly across the bows of the Harbin Maru, both ships being damaged above the waterline. Many similar vessels were wrecked, lighters were lifted on to wharves, and cargo was strewn about the docks. Most of the damage to shipping in Kobe Harbour was caused by a huge tidal wave, which swamped the wharves. Damage to merchandise in the pier sheds in Kobe Harbour was estimated at £1.000.000. Thrilling stories of the typhoon were also told by passengers on the Nankin. Miss Lynette Young, of Toorak. Melbourne, who was aboard the Nankin in Kobe Harbour when the typhoon struck Japan, said that through the porthole of her cabin she watched ships plunging and straining at their moorings, and saw some breaking away. Snapping steel cables as if they were cotton threads, the ships drifted, like bobbing corks, across the intervening water and crashed into other vessels moored opposite them. A tidal wave swept suddenly over the harbour, and wharves disappeared. Men could be seen struggling along the wharves through water up to four feet deep. The Chichibu Maru, a vessel of 20,000 tons, and the pride of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Line, was wrenched from her moorings and crashed into a wharf opposite, sustaining serious damage. Nine bodies were recovered after this accident. Several other ships broke loose and drifted helplessly about the harbour, bumping into other craft and causing much damge to plates and superstructure.

When on her way from Hongkong to Manila the Nankin experienced another typhoon, which was terrifying to the passengers. Receiving word of the approaching typhoon. the Nankin deviated from her course, and ran with the wind on the quarter all night, going 200 miles out of her course.