Singapore, 21st June.
We regret to have to record another of the dreadful shipping disasters which from. time to time have marked the history of steam navigation in the Straits. On Saturday afternoon news reached Singapore that the Sri Hong Ann, bound from Singapore to Malacca, ad foundered in a squall about 4a.m., whilst off Pulau Undan, some ten miles from Malacca. At that time many f those on board would be soundly asleep, and in heavy loss of life this fatality recalls the terrible collision in which the s.s. Benton was lost in the Straits of Malacca in 1887, when over 100 people were drowned. 2 At certain times of the year the sudden squalls or 'Sumatras' that spring up in the Straits of Malacca are of great violence, especially north of the Karimons. The squall we had on Saturday here was a fair example, the wind rising suddenly to a t velocity, and a deluge of rain following. But in the south, with the broken nature of the land and the smaller expanses of sea, the same violence is not attained. Occasionally an early morning Sumatra will blow with such violence in Malacca that it is impossible to stand erect on the sea front, and in an hour the sea is lashed into dangerous waves. It is easy to understand how the Sri Hong Ann, struck by a sudden squall, and the wind probably getting under the awnings, would turn turtle.
The s.s. Sri Hong Ann, Capt. Rawlingson, left here on Friday evening at about 4.45 having on board a general cargo, principally rice, and her full complement of passengers, 146 on deck, Chinese, Malays, ete., and four cabin passengers, Mr. and Mrs, W. Anderson for Malacca, and Mr. and Mrs. Pereira, for Port Dickson. The only officers on bourd besides the captain and the native crew were Mr, Allen, the Chief Engineer, and Mr. Felix Gombs, second engineer. The Sri Hong Ann, owned by Me, Lom Ho-push, was a wooden screw steamer, of 108 tons, which was built in 1892 by the New Har-hour Dock Ca. Her dimensions are—length 119.4 feet, breadth 19 feet and depth 9 feet.
There are no details yet to hand as to how the catastrophe actually occurred, and it was at first feared that there was only one survivor, the Chinese cook on board the Sri Hong Ann, who contrived by means of a wooden ker: himself afloat until picked up by some fishing boats when he was taken on to Malacca. Subsequent telegrams from the agents at Malacca to Messrs. Wee Bin & Ca., the agents here, only served to confirm' this doleful suspicion, which was accentuated on the arrival yesterday morning of the s.s. Ban Hin Guan, by the fact that that vessel had come on without seeing any sign of the Sri Hong Ann or her passengers.
Yesterday about 12.33 noon, however, a more cheerful telegram was received from Capt. Rawlingson at Belawan. (Deli) to say that the Sri Hong Ann had foundered off Malacca, that himself, sixteen (16%) of the crew and 63 passengers had been saved by the Dutch steamer Reyust bound to Belawan, and that they hoped to arrive in Singapore on Tuesday (to-morrow). This still leaves 110 of those who were on board the ill-faced vessel to be accounted for, but it is hoped that either the British Steamer Sulan or the Dutch Steamer Sri Tanjong Penang, which left Singapore for Bongkalis, on Friday, may possibly have sighted and rescued some of the remaining passengers and that in this way the mortality may be farther reduced.
So far as we have been able to learn it not certain-whether the 53 -passei ferred to in Capt. Ravlingson's telegram
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.