588
12.
To give you some idea of the damage done, I may mention as follows:-
I
All the timber jetties at Kowloon wharves except one have been swept away. The masonry wall has been wrecked for about 100 yards; the foundation apparently gave way and the wall subsided.
Besides the tramp steamer which was landed on the Pierre Perdu at Tai Kok Tsui, the Monteagle, one of the C.P.R. liners running to Vancouver, was washed up with a French Torpedo Boat Destroyer between here and the shore. Another Trench Torpedo Boat Destroyer was crushed like a match box between a 3-masted sailing vessel and the Kowloon Wharf wall.
Four or five other steamers were driven ashore, one in Hung Hom Bay. Some of these steamers, including the Tai Kok Tsui one, were warped off in the high tide the next morning.
About 90% of the Chinese junks, I should think, were wrecked and the loss of life must be enormous. Five thousand, I fear, is a small estimate. Hong Kong, being sheltered by the hill, did not suffer so much as Kowloon. However, Quarry Bay shipyard suffered very badly, the workshops being flattened out.
13. The above was written on Wednesday morning, and on Wednesday afternoon the typhoon signals were again hoisted, and the typhoon struck the Colony again, coming from the East about 12 o'clock in the middle of the night.
The warning, however, allowed steamers to get