August 11, 1902.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
THE HARBOUR.
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being wrenched out), as also have parts of the junk would ride the storm in safety, the shiver- mashed covering of the Admiralty patenting sailors, leaving one man on watch, hurried fuel stored opposite. Beyond the statement that back to their quarters for the warm tot" only three conservancy boats were wrecked off awaiting them. Later on in the morning the Yaumati, without loss of life, no official reports storm-tossed little craft drifted close in to the have yet been received to give any indication jetty at the Depot, and her crew, shivering of the extent of the damage in Yaumati and with fear and cold, were safely landed. the outlying Kowloon districts, but a visit to Yaumati on Saturday afternoon showed numbers of sampans hauled up high and dry on the beach, their owners seated in comparative comfort inside, propitiating the storm fiend by burning joss-sticks. Innumerable streets are flooded, some of them more than ankle-deep, and others again are rendered almost impassable by the uprooted trees lying, in many instances, right across their width. On the 3rd inst. Yaumati was practically knee-deep in water.
The spectacle along the Praya on the 2nd nist. was one of wild grandeur, the waves rising in great cascades over the sea-wall and dash- ing in billy masses of spray and foam across the entire width of the Praya. The few hardy spirits who, waterproof-clad, bad ventured out, found immunity from the elements impossible, and walked along with apparent indifference to the complete drenchings they were exposing them. selves to. Ove of ti ese wayfarers-ti.ere were ouly about half-a-dozen visible-was a European lady,and she with her husband sto d in the midst of it all and gazed over the turbulent waters of the harbour, where ships with their anchors down and steam up were rolling and pitching as they rode cut the storm.
Not since the memorable typhoon of 1^th November,,900, has the harbour presented such a turbulent appearence, The ships lying at their buoys had their anchors all in readiness to be dropped when the typi ocu gun sent its significant warning across the waters. and with steam up they rode out the gale | magnificently. The only ship at the Go- down Company's wharf was the Marsang, and her position, though not danger ons, was such as to call for the exercise of unceasing vigilance ou the part of her officers. Captain Brown, the head wharfinger of the Godown Company, went down to the wharf after nightfall and saw to the re-mooring of the steamer, which emerged from the storm with safety. The Chusan, northward bound, went ont at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, but the homeward-bound Valetta postponed her departure till a more propitious period and left yesterday about noon. The ferry launches continued running up till five o'clock, when the last one left Hongkong for the Kowloon side. Her departure was the occasion of a scene of wild confusion on the pier, crowds of Chinese struggling
the place launch. Yesterday morning only two launches were making the journey across, two of the other launches having met with slight accidents. The anchor chain of the Northern Star became entangled during the night with the propeller, round which it wound so firmly as to make its unloosing a work of some diffi- culty; and the Morning Star sustained damage through being swept against either a rock or the eu-wall. By the afternoon the propeller of the Northern Star had been freed, and she was put on the run, which was thus brought up to its usual strength. Many ships earlier in the
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made for shelter, and this course was adopted also by the junks and sampans with which the harbour abounds. A number of steam launches are said to have been lost, but this reports lacks confirmation.
THE PEAK.
Owing to a landslip on the line just at the print where the trams cross, the service was temporarily suspended. The superintendent and the whole staff, with a large gang of cooli s. were working throughout yesterday and the whle of ast night clearing away the debris, and it is hop d that the cars wil be able to resume running this morning. everal la ge boniders which lauded on th- I ne have made the worker's task a very difficult one.
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leaving the furniture exposed to the elements- At The Eyrie" one of the verandahs was unroofed, and several large panes of plate glass were smashed. A number of tiles were blown from the roof of it. Gough Station, und a landslip occurred at the back of "St. Andrews," the residence of Hon. G. W. F. Playfair, on Bar- ker Road. The telegraph lines suffered a good dea', and the lines were broken in many places.
At the commencement of the typhoon a junk moored westward of the Star Ferry pier was seen to be in distress. Held by two anchors run out from her head, she rolled and pitched terribly, dipping deep into the waves every time the influence of the restraining cabl's manifested itself. There were seven or eight people on board, including a woman and a little boy, and their loud cries for help showed that they realised their extreme peril even more keenly than the few anxious-eyed Europeaus on shore, These could do nothing, for although the distressed boat was only fi.ty yards or so fr m the Praya wall, the gale was blowing dead on shore, and so made the throwing of a line on board a physical impossii ility. Darkness settled down. and but for the presence on shore of half-a-dozen Chinese in charge of Captain Brown, of the Godowns, and three Europeans, one of them Lieut. McClay, R. A. M.C., and another Mr. B.W. Grey, P.W.D., there was nothing to indicate to the unfortunate recupants of the junk that they were not to be left to their fate without any attempt being made to save them. The Water Police, whose duty might not unr asonably be expected to have lain there, never made au appearance. Posibly their attention was en- gaged elsewhere, but at the last typoou something over a week ago their numbers were said to be sufficient to ensure the patrolling of the entire water-front from Tsimshatsui to Yaumati. Paying out all the available chain, the crew of the junk allowed her to get as close as thirty yards to the Praya wall, as near as could be judged in the darkless, but though the three Europeans mentioned did all they possibly could to heave a line aboard, their efforts were utterly futile and had reluctantly to be abandoned. Then the junk people tried to get a line ashore by fastening one to a bamboo which they threw overboard, but if the line came in the direction of the watchers on the Praya the darkness made it impossible for them to see it, and at last, dripping wet from the rain and the waves that frequently washed over them, they were forced to leave the spot. When the typhoon changed direction, the junk, whose occupants now were so still that they all might have been dead, drifted slowly in the direction of the Torpedo Depot, where Gunner White and his men took up the work of attempting to rescue them. The gale hnd increased considerably, but after six hours' buf- fetting, the junk, now rolling somewhat heavily from the water she had shipped, still rose and fell gamely to the heavy swell. Gunner White and his placky bluejackets, some of them dressed just as they were when they scrambled out of bed, stood by from ten o'clock till after miduight, drenched and blinded by the driving rain and spindrift, waiting for tained damage to the verandah, and' there was the opportunity that should enable them to some breakage of glass on the verandahs of 6 and rescue the objects of their regard. Then the 7, Des Voeux Vilias. The Peak Club matshed sea moderated, and when it was seen that the was carried away almost bodily by the wind,
Although most of the bouses on the southern side of the Peak were much exposed, they di i not suffe: auy very serious damage from the typhoon. Very few roofs proved wholly impervious to the torrential showers, but leaking roofs have been the rule during this exceptionally wet summer. The damage sustained from the wind was practically trifling. A gord many houses lost stutters or portious thereof, and in some cases a window or two was blown in, but in few cases did the foe penetrate beyond the first line of defence. i
About 9.30 p.m. on Saturday a portion of the retaining wall of Myrtle Bank," together with a section of the servants' quarters,
to down on
the Mount Kellett crashed Road. Probably somewhere about the same mass of water having collected on Mr. R. C. Wilcox's croquet ground, above Stewart Terrace, and the drain having become choked, the boundary wall af the east end gave way and a mass of earth and stone was preci- pitated on to the path below and a quantity of the debris carried down into the rear of the servants' quarters in Stewart Terrace. Hap- pily no one was injured. A large stone roller close to the wall where it was carried away was fortunately caught in the branches of a small tree and thus saved from being carried with the One of the Cameron Villas sus- falling mass,
time a
No serious accident is reported from the, Magazine Gap district, but owing to the fall of the retaining wall of the tennis-court at “Tusculum ” the whole of the road was blooked.
On other roads small landslips were also the cause of much hindrance to passenger traffic. Daily Press, 4th August.
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LATER DF TAILS. Very little remains to be added to the account which we published on the 4th inst, of Saturday's typhoon. Six bodies have been recovered from the ruins of the collapsed house in Wanchai Road, and five were still missing yesterday.
From Samshuipo comes the news that part of the harbour office there collapsed, without, At however, causing injury to any one. Cheungchauwan the steam launch Shui On was sunk and another steam-launch, the Fuk On, driven ashore. The crew in each instance escaped.
Over thirty juuks have been driven ashore in the neighbourhood of Yaumati, and nine people are reported to be missing. In the Taipo the Road two landslips occurred, and at Cosmopolitan Docks the sheer-legs were blown the deck of the down. One fell steamer Marie Jebsen, fortunately without injury to any person.
across
At Mongkok th Praya wall was washed way for a distance of two hundred yards, as was also part of that at Fuk Tsun Heung. The steam-launches Douglas and Wo Lee were Funk near the Huughom ferry wharf, and the Hongkong Hotel launch was driven ashore at the Hunghom Docks The crews were rescued. - A little Chinese girl of three was drowned by the swamping at Hunghom of house-boat No. 2021. The You Lee trading junk was also sunk, no lives, however, big lost. The only other accident repo ted from Hunghom was the collapsing of two cook-houses, which was un- attende by casualties.
On Sunday night at eight o'clock a cook. house at 37. Gough Street, in the city, came down with a run, after having withstood the entire gale on Saturday. One women is reported to have been buried.
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Three coolies were killed by the embankment which collapsed on Saturday evening and ngulfed part of the servants' quarters of of Mr. T. P. Te Pines," the residence Cochrane, of the Chartered Bank. One body is still missing, and was being searched for yesterday morning. It has now probably been ecovered.
Several landslips occurred in the Shaukiwan district near Quarry Bay, and in one, which took place at Chat Tze Mui and pr cipitated itself upon a matshed, a Chinese woman and her son, aged twelve, were buried among the ruins and killed. The bodies were unearthed some time later. Many matsheds were blown down in this district, but no other fatalities have been recorded. The launch Heron sank off Shauki- wan load, the crew escaping in time:
At Cheung Chan Island, where the typhoon appears to have manifested itself with great severity, tea houses were completely destroyed and a number of others damaged, happily with- out loss of life.
Two other deaths took place in the killing of a Chinandan by the collapse of a matshed at the Naval Hospital extension and the drowning of another in the shelter at Causeway Bay; the latter accidentally fell off his boat and sank before help could be extended to him. -
Some houses in course of erection on Pok- fulam Road were blown down, nobody being hurt. Bonham Road has been very much damaged by landstips, and one which occurred in Belchers Street blocked the entire thoroughfare.
Beyond the interruption of telephonic com- munication with Stanley and Aberdeen, both districts have been fortunate to escape the violence of the gale.
About 2 p.m. on Sunday, the 3rd inst., West River steamer Chung Kong, of the Kwong Wan Steamboat Company, was approaching Li: Tin Island when these cn board observed
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