COLLISION AT SEA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12945, 9 December 1909, Page 5

COLLISION AT SEA.

THE LOSS OF THE LASEYENE.

Awful Suddenness of the Disaster.

Drowned Like Rats in a Trap.

Many Seized by Sharks.

Press Association — Telegraph . — Copyright. Received December 9, 10.35 a.m.

PORT DARWIN, December 8

Details of the Onga~Laseyene collision, show that the disaster occurred early in the morning. Both steamers were well lighted. The French steamer went to the bottom in less than five minutes. The commander, Captain Conailhoe, lost his life. So suddenly did the catastrophe occur that there was no time for orders to be given on the French ship, qr for boats to be lowered. The steamer went down like a stone, the majority of those on board being- drowned like rats in a trap. All the rescued were picked up in boats promptly put out by the Onga, but if any were not picked up at the moment they must have met their death from sharks or drowning.

Glendinning, one of the sailors saved, confirms the report that a good many were pulled down by sharks, many of which were about. . Just aa a Malay seaman was being dragged into a boat a shark seized the man's foot. The engineer beat the brute off with a boothook, and the Malay was saved. Twenty-eight members of the native crew and 14 native passengers were rescued. Two hundred bags of mails were lost.

On the 14th, of November the Messagcr-ies-Maritimes steamer La«eyene foundered in the Rhio Straits two minutes after colliding with the Indian liner Onda. The latter rescued and landed 61 of her passengers and crew at Singapore. Seven Europeans, 'so Asia-tic passengers, the captain, five officers, and 38 of the Asiatic crew were drowned.