(4)
Registrar General to Colonial Secretary.
В
f
With reference to your Memo. of the 28th ultimo, I beg to report, for His Excellency No. 156. Governor's information, that up to this date the number of Deaths, occasioned by the Tyhoon, whi have been registered, is as follows:--
I
Male Adults,
Female
Male Children, Female
"
CHINESE.
DROWNED.
419
..........152
***
93
712
KILLED BY FALLING HOUSES.
Male Adults,
52
Female
15
Male Children, Female
12
5
}}
Total Deaths,..
84
****.796
The above refer to Chinese among whom, of course, the greatest number of Deaths occur may take this opportunity of reporting to His Excellency the great aid given by the Board of Direct of the Tung-Wa Hospital in the late serious emergency. The Board hired boats and engaged m through whose instrumentality as many as 193 bodies of those enumerated above were buried.
Further, they hired the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, steamer, and one of the members of the scarched the neighbouring headlands and inlets, where they buried several other bodies of the countrymen, as well as those of two Europeans.
The energy displayed and the good work done by the Board deserves, I think, some recognit from the Government.
Besides the Deaths among Chinese,and our returns will never show the actual loss of life, wis may be roughly estimated at thrice that recorded, there were among Europeans and other thi Chinese:-
DROWNED.
( 5 )
Surveyor General to Colonial Secretary.
216
SURVEYOR GENERAL'S OFFICE, HONGKONG, 9th October, 1874.
SIR,-Pending the completion of more detailed accounts, I have the honour to subunit, for the information of His Excellency the Governor, the present brief memorandum of the damage done to the city and outlying villages by the typhoon of the 23rd ultimo,
many
Doubtless the Harbour Master's Report will have contained a full account of all meteorological phenomena connected with the gale, and it will not therefore be necessary to repeat them here. It is to be regretted that no record should have been obtained of the pressure of the wind, as the Meteoro- logical Station connected with the Government Hospital was swept away when that building col- lapsed, and no vestige was left of the Anemometrical register. That the island, however, was not miles distant from the focus of the cyclone is proved not only by the intensity of the wind, but by a feature known to exist only within such a focus, namely, the abrupt intervals of calm during the height of the gale. These lulls were instantaneous often lasting as long as four or five minutes, and alternating with the most violent gusts, equally sudden, the conjoint action of the two became, as it were, that of a battering ram. To these sudden shocks, continued for three hours, buildings finally succumbed, that would have withstood the same pressure of the wind, had the latter been constant and steady.
Although the gale is said to have culminated while blowing from E.N.E, I find that it must have been almost as severe from the North and North-East, for quite as many buildings, fences, and walls in Victoria were found thrown over towards the South as in the direction of the West.
It was not, however, until after 1 A.M. that the wind had attained a sufficient force to cause the havoc which followed, and as this force had abated very considerably before 4 A.M., the entire work of destruction in Hongkong may be said to have been accomplished within the space of three hours. This does not, however, refer to life or property afloat, for in many places, junks and native craft had already been blown adrift and were foundering shortly after midnight.
The villages in Kowloon were for a time sheltered by the mountains at the back of that Peninsula and enjoyed comparative immunity until the wind following the cyclonic curve took them in flank and blew down the houses towards the West and North-West.
The following is a tabulated statement of the deaths which have occurred from the fall of buildings, of the number of houses totally destroyed, and of the number of houses so damaged as to necessitate their reconstruction. The number of buildings unroofed or otherwise damaged, but not sufficiently so to entail their removal, is too large to be accurately ascertained in time for this Report, but it is roughly estimated that only four per cent of the houses in Victoria have escaped. In other words, from four to six thousand dwellings may be said to have suffered more or less according to their exposed or sheltered positions.
LOCALITY.
HOUSES TOTALLY
DESTROYED.
HOUSES PARTIALLY DESTROYED TO BE
PULLED DOWN.
DEATUS FROM FALL OF HOUSES.
Male Adults,
14
KILLED BY FALLING HOUSES.
Male Adults,
3
Total,.
17
Thus shewing a total of 813 Deaths registered.
Victoria,
Yow Ma Tee,. Stanley, Aberdeen, Ap-li Chow, Sau-hi Wan,
Sa Hán,
་་་་་་་
Little Hongkong,
The Surveyor General will report as to the destruction of houses belonging to Chinese, as I hu Hung Hom, furnished him with the details which I have received.
CECIL C. SMITH,
Registrar Generai.
Tai Kok Tsui, Mong Kok, Shek 0,
Registrar General's Office, Hongkong, 7th October, 1874.
The Honorable J. GARDINER AUSTIN,
Colonial Secretary,
HONGKONG.
TOTAL,
114
214
56
29
60
***
32
156
3
10
48
22
10
29
22
23
97
G
5
15
43
***
2
16
16
32
14
30
18
all the village.
273
740
109
The Government Inspectors also report that the villages of Hok-Yun, Matowai, Tokawan, Matow- kok, and Matowchung have been left without a house standing, and that the ruins of the two latter have been deserted by the villagers.