574 'THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 17TH OCTOBER, 1874.
Besides the Deaths among Chinese,—and our returns will never show the actual loss of life, which may be roughly estimated at thrice that recorded, there were among Europeans and other than Chinese:
DROWNED.
Male Adults,
14
KILLED BY FALLING HOUSES.
Male Adults,
3
Total,
17
Thus shewing a total of 813 Deaths registered.
The Surveyor General will report as to the destruction of houses belonging to Chinese, as I have furnished him with the details which I have received.
Registrar General's Office, Hongkong, 7th October, 1874.
The Honorable J. GARDINER AUSTIN,
[No. 156.]
Colonial Secretary,
HONGKONG.
Surveyor General to Colonial Secretary.
CECIL C. SMITH,
Registrar General.
SURVEYOR GENERAL'S OFFICE,
.
HONGKONG, 9th October, 1874.
SIR,--Pending the completion of more detailed accounts, Ì have the honour to submit, 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.
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 many 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.
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