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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER, 10, 1959,
THE WINDS CAUSED FEARFUL CARNAGE & DESTRUCTION'
They scoffed- & died
I
is generally believed that in this area typhoons, occur in a specifie season between July and October. But more than once an off-season gale has struck with devastating results.
The most notable of the off-season storms occurred in 1900. After a year, relatively free of typhoons, one of them began churning from the Philippines towards Hongkong..
It took just under five days to reach the Colony on November 10.
wag
well- Hongkong warned of the proximity of the storm, but many Acoffed at the idea of a typhoon hitting Hong- kang in mid-November. How
were wrong they proved to be.
In the final article of the series, China Mail feature writer ANDREW SLOAN tells of an off-season typhoon which struck in mid-November of 1900.
tion, on thd stretch from Pedder's Whart to West Point had either been badly damaged or totally demolished. Property also much In damage was evidence.
One of thr biggest land dis- asters occurred in Wanchal, an Queen's Road East. A large apartment house which was being re-constructed had collapsed during the heavy rain and high winds. One wall had fallen in and 15 people had died Four or five more had when seriously Injured pulled out of the wreckage by Police and Central Fire Brigade rescue workers.
brunt of the financial loss and inside.
teen A China Mail correspon- the death toll. dent reviewing tho hap-
Many of the bigger ships were penings on Friday, Novem- able to ride out the storm in the ber 10, noted: "It is a various bays around the har- most unprecedented cir- bour, but they recolved the usual cumstance to have a storm damage to above-deck equipment.
The smaller, lighter ships how of this character come ever suffered badly. along so late in the
year, as the latest recorded "visit of a typhoon is dated Oc tober 14."
HMS Sandpiper," a Naval gunboat stationed in Hongkong, and well-known between here and Conion, was sunk and many of her crew drowned.
No Aid
Along the praya wall in Kow- loun, opposite the godowns, the wreckage of large funks was piled three or four feet high. The sea smashed over this to a height of artother six teet, and inundating the roadway waterfront buildings.
One unusual happening is on record. A reporter passing "Due warning had been
along Yaunati Buy saw a gaping, given of the existence of a
callous hearted crowd typhoon in the China sen,
Chinese Funding on the water's both from the Manila and
The gunboat had been sufe in edge, laughing arxi Jeering al the Hongkong Observatory, the eariler part of the typhoon, the pathetic. plight of the Hakka who were des- but most did not believe it but when the wind veered to the (boat people)
fared badly. Earlier, perately trying to salvage what would hit the Colony until NW she
the sea swept over her com- they could of their worldly it was too late."
pletely engulfing the whole ship, goods. She was desperate struits and
The Royal Observatory in a began fring minute guns.
booklet published nine years the subject of But there was little help for ago, notes on
Typhoons her.
The sky darkened on Friday morning, and a slight drup in
the barometer was noted.
Shortly after noon- actually However the destroyer, HMS "Olier," herself adrift, attempted The frat altempi rescue. at 11.50 a.m. in the oficial a
folled miserably, But on the records
— the black inverted second trip she pulled alongside Lulcken Sandpoped and cone was hoisted which in the
was able to transfer mon, of the formed all that a typhoon was crew before the gunboat sank.
at least within 300 miles of the Colony,
Scoffers
Part of the Observatory fore- cast said a gale was probable and would be squally wet.
and
As the afternoon progressed the barometer fell, but still a gathering in the Hongkong Club bar poo-pooed the possibilities of it finally hitting the Colony,
Ai 0 p.m. the Observatory Jesued a further note on the progress of the storm, which had developed into a fully-fledged typhoon.
instructions Firing were also sent to the gunners arunning the typhoon gun which
Two weeks previously, a brand new dredger was brought to the Colony to help in the construc tion and extension of the Naval dockyard. She was the heavily lasured "Canton River." On Saturday morning her bright- red keel was completely visible from the Hongkong Club.
An American three-masted schooner had been smashed into the Fraya wall and lifted over it onto Arsenal Street.
An undetermined number of owned by shipping launches companies, the civil and Naval dockyards, and various govern. ment departments were sunk or damaged beyond repair.
Smashed
The wreckage of junks and would give warning "when the sampons nearly 400 of them- storm was imminent.
was scattered ali around STILL FEW TOOK NOTICE harbour on Hongkong. Kowloon
They were more worried and and Stonecutters interested in their
the
of He was not reported mall loss
rellable estimate fully, but one
Loland.
The
which had been delayed because put the anal gure between 100- the mail steamer, P & O's
"Schraon," had been caught in
500.
re
the same typhoon one day out On Hongkong Island, a of Hongkong.
porter walked along the water-
Two hours later, at 8 p.m., front and noted that every the Observatory's worst fears wooden wharf, with one excep-
became reality. Blinding sheets
of rain and shrieking 90 mile-
an-hour winds were the van- guard of an appalling typhoon,
The Mall's correspondent wrole, "all the traditional rouring, shrieking and piping of the storm were present."
Throughout the night the storm blew with increasing violence. But came the day- tight an almost dead enim felt over the Inland and the How- Joon Peninsula,
The Terror.
-The harbour was as smooth as glass, and as the uninitiated rose that morning from their beds they smiled cnd thought to themselves, "Well, that's over:"
But in that calm lay the terror of the whole situation. The wind veered and again the barometer, began to fall. Smiles were wiped of the faces of the uninformed.
The elements rose again and by 7 n.. had reached, if not surpassed, their previous violence.
A Warning
"We have stil much to learn about the causes underlying the processes of the atmosphere, and until the sclence of weather forecasting has made consider- able advances we shall have to depend largely on past records to assess future
probabilities;
what has happened in the past is likely to happen again, with variations.
CLEARING THE
SITE
WITH JAK
***Course, if only the National Trust and Green Belt Association prosecute, you'll'
get off with 20 years."
Down on
NOW
London Express Service.
a super-farm
MR. KHRUSHCHEV'S FRIEND AT COON RAPIDS, U.S.A., MIGHT
HAVE BEEN SHOT IN THE UKRAINE
OW that the hubbub has died down after Mr Khrushchev's recent visit to his farming tycoon friend Roswell Garst, I have been down to take a look at that famed farm at Coon Rapids, Iowa.
There were no hordes of can' produce more than enough American newsmen and tele food to feed the entire nation, vision reporters lo trample the while I takes 50 per cent of corn and hide the horizon as the Soviet people to produce a they did when Mr K. called on much less luxurious diet for Gerst on September 23.
the Russian population.
Says Mr Garst: "Mr
It struck me as I looked over of neres which the thousands we study the
have just been cleared of a massive, crop of maize, com 10, the Americans-that Mr Garst is lucky to have been born In America.
"But, while
statistics of bygone typhoons, we should never forget that these storms are expricious areatures. Someday the n¤à- precedented may happen; bo- typhoon galo has cause no yet been recorded in Hong- Колк earlier than June, we
musi
that not sasume
one
cannot occur in May, or deed. In mid-winter."
in-
ADDENDA: Typhoon gales the may set in at anytime of day or night and there is no foundation for the grumble that typhoons always occur at week-ends.
The Real-Life
FOR
Scrooge
CURIOUS CHARACTERS
OR sheer miserliness, sculptor Joseph Nollekens beats them all even his unbelievably mean father, who died from a heart attack while mobs ransacked his house.
From an early age, London- They sat in darkness. If anyone (in 1737) Nollekens called, Nollekens did not move born wallowed in greed and mean- at the first knock, saying, "Let right ness. He did not light a fire in them be sure this is the his house for 40 years.
house before I light my candle." the Royal Academy dinner, for which he had paid two ruiness, ha determined to get his maney's worth. He carefully pocketed many bawis of nutmegs during the, baj. quel. These would last him a year-anill the next Academy
dinner.
At As an art student in Rome, he constructed a hidden trap-
In the midst of the bowing door ino bust ho fashioned. cyclonic winds, could be heard Then, before he left on one of the ominous crack of the minute his frequent trips to London, guns fired by ships in distress. he stuffed the space full of silk and lace a stockings, gloves, winda caused
and scent, which he muggled in
the
Avarice
Nollekens, would never leave food in his house. Before he went out, he collected every Nollckens went to extra- morsel and carried it with him, ordinary lerigths to avoid pay- Mysteriously, Nollekens" grued ing for food "One of his most and meanness did not last. It
K the 61-year-old super- farmer had been farming in the Ukraine when Mr K. was run- ning the collectivisution pro- wor he before the gramme might have ended front of a Arng-squad.
Mr Gurst is practically a one- on collectivisation programie in himself..
Revolutionary
As such he is just the sort of man Mr K. was looking for with a hatchet in the grim 1930s, when 1,000,000 farming families In the Ukraine died.
It was lucky for Mr Khrush- chev 100.
Thanks to his survival, Mr Garst has been able to do more for Soviet agriculture in five years than the average Soviet farmer could do in a lifetime.
The secret of his success is mach the same as Mr Khrush- chev's. He is a revolutionary- a revolutionary in com produc- tion.
Tossing out the textbooks and thumbing his nose at the pro- fessors, he boldly decided that the watchword of prudent hus-i bandry, crop rotation, had gone out with the horse.
He pinned his faith to modern fertilisers, went all out for cross- breeding in corn, and ended with a hybrid corn output that is the envy of his competitors.
His corn is now growing in the Soviet Union too.
Bowled Over
Now he is far more than, a farmer. He is also a banker, a salesman, a store, owner, and a manufacturer of fertiliser.
And he la probably the only American who can claim ini. male friendship with the Soviet Premier.
His relationship with Mr K. was schnething of an accident.
It began five years ago when the present Soviet Minister of Agriculture, Viadimir Matske- vich, was heading a delegation of Soviet farmers on a tour of the United States.
Mr Garel's Coon Rapids fam
But was not on the itinerary,
Matakovich- did' virit Comrade Des Moines, centre of the Iowa farmlande.
„_„There the editor of the Des Moines Register suggested that At the Russians, wanted to se roat andern faxring, Coon Rapids woe the place to go,
itsoy did. And they were
Soon afterwards" bowled over. Mr Gurt was invited to the
The fearful carnage destruction, and newspaper noted that on Saturday, on the evidence they could see, the mortality and property damage would successful frauds was to Pre- left him as he grew old, being be high. As it turned out, tend he had a sore throat, and replaced by a wild generosity between 32-8,000,000 then call on his friends, Black for which he quickly became Soviet Union."
curtant jally was the usual famous.. Anyone * could cadga worth of damage
cure in those dis; and he col money from him.
¡ caused and nearly 500 locbed pots of 12 cas
died
Dedicated
When, he died. In 1823, he Bven Nollekene write matter- left generous bequests to all his the Russians was the clue to an
As always, the harboured by his ignờicm • No candle servants.
[their] briano at night, svergunda and shipping bato this "Haflanch
What Mr Ghost: had to tell MASpec.old Bovies puzzle how 312-per. otkiifumi Amasidan : pazale London Express, Service)."
By-
Our Own Reporter
Khrushchev is interested in find- ing out how to produce a better diet with fewer people, That is what, basically, I intend to help him discover.
He has been travelling back al forth to the Soviet Union
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They want a new law for better
weather..
CANADI
Quebec City. ANADIANS in North- west Quebec have asked the
provincial
government to pass legis- lation for better weather especially less rain, Specifically they want successful rain-making machines outlawed.
been
Mic machines have installed by the timber panies to reduon the forest fre ívazard, Ski-resort owners have also used them to coerce snow falls in winter.
Biggest
Rosull; Last winter Montre had the biggest snowfall on re- card, which brought all traffe to a standstill for several days.
And the rainfall in the rich farming country of Quebec for the past two years has been the it highest in history. In 1950 was six inches idgher than the previous 27 years' overage,
Local chambers' of commerce the are handling
complaints. Soveteen rain-making mochines now in operation, they claim. There used to be a water shortage in the area. But now there is too anuch,
are
-London Express Savuton).
TALKING
POINTS
name
ever since, a welcome personal
My
worth is guest of the Khrushchevs.
For, it he is not a dedicated money,
and I'm going to Commumist, he is a dedicated
So is use that advantage to move seeker after effelency.. Mr Khrushchev.
up the ladder.
MAMIE VAN DOREN.
London Express Service.
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