Is is not often that we have to chronicle a typhoon in November, but the unexpected has happened once more, and caught some people napping. The unusual heat which was experienced during the first part of the current week gave place on Thursday evening to a dull lowering sky and a drizzly rain, which after dark was accompanied by stormy gusts, lasting until morning, when the wind died down, and mest persons thought they had seen the last of the typhoon disturbance, for a typhoon had een signalled as raging in the north-west. But yesterday afternoon the weather worsened, as it were, on to evening, and at 5 p.m. it was blowing half a gale at the Peak. Even then no one imagined anything serious was impending, and when the typhoon gun was fired at about 6 p.m. only a little gale was looked for, and no great precautions were taken, The weather grew rapidly worse, however; the gusts became more alarming and more frequent, the rain heavier, and the baron meter began to full. At about 3 o'clock this morning the gale rose to typhoon force, the gliss rapidly dropped another five-tenths, touching about 4 a.m. as low as 28,82 inches, and for a spell of two hours the residents in exposed situstions hada bad time. Then followed a lull of about half-an-hour, after which the gale increased in force again, driving from the N.W. At about six a.m. the glass commenced to rise, and rose almost as rapidly as it fell.
In the city the gale and its effects have naturally been the topic of conversation. The damage done is very considerable and very wide bread. In the city comparatively little serious damage has resulted, but some houses in Queen's Road, near the Fire Brigade Station, collapsed under the pressure of the wind and seven or eight chinese were killed.
Afloat a much more serious tale has to be told. Numerous small craft were dashed to pieces, the gunboat Sandpiyer went down near her moorings off Yaumati, and the Otter, which went to her rescue, and contrived to take off safely all her crew, was damaged la the act. The fine new dredger just got out for the Reclamation works at the Royal Naval Dockyard could not steam away in time to shelter and turned over and now lies in about 20 feet of water. Her crew had to sit in the cold and wet on her side for some hours befure they could be rescued, and one, the carpenter, was drowned, and two Chinese are missing. A sergeant in the Naval Yard Police was drowned while engaged in a most gallant attempt to save a Chinese boatwoman, and the body of an English sailor was found floating in the water.
At Kowloon the damage to houses and buildings is very extensive, and one of the wharves has been partially wrecked by a steamer. The streets of Yaumati are full of boats driven up out of the water, and the bay in shore is almost covered with floating debris of wrecked native craft. Five or six steam-launches have also been piled up ashore there. Numerous lives have been lost. In the New Territory several matsheds and Government erections have been blown to the four winds. One occupied by Mr. Gray, of the Public Works Department, was blown inside out, and the only refuge left to himself and family was the kitchen. The children had narrow escapes from the flying doors and window frames, which were torn out and lifted bodily by the wind.
At the Peak also the damage done was undoubtedly the most serious yet recorded ofagale. Four Chinamen, in a matshed at the works at Mountain Lodge, the Go-yernment residence now in course of erect tion, were killed by the collapse of the fabric. The Haystack, Meirion, and Bahar Lodge were all robbed of window frames and deprived of " portion of their roofs. On Mount Kellett the houses were badly damaged, and the Peak Hospital came to special grief, being rendered almost uninhabitable. On Mount Gough the coolie quarters of Nos. 4, 5, and 6, Stewart Terrace, were blown down and the Police Station stripped of part of its roof. Matsheds were sent flying in all directions, the roads are littered with fragments of tiles, and all the young plantations have been more or less wrecked. The gardens, where the succulent vegetables, so mach esteemed by Peakites in winter, are grown, were stripped bare and washed out. At Magazine Gap all the houses have sustained more or less damage, and " High-dere," the residence of Mr. T. F, Hough, was blown clean out and wrecked.
This by no means concludes the tale of disaster, but merely comprises items I have picked up by the way. The arrival of the English mail is anxiously looked for, as it is feared she may hare met the typhoon. Some anxiety is also felt concerning other vessels which left port yesterday or the day previous.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.