Group
p. 65 · Read in the full issue
Hurricane Sweeps Lau Group Sunken Cutter’s Crew Adrift on Raft
From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, February 4.
A SEVERE hurricane was experienced in the southern section of the Lau Group on January 19. At Komo Island, the 25tons auxiliary cutter Tui Naviti Levu, owned by Jang King Loong Co., capsized and the same company’s store and stock on the island were blown away. Every native house was destroyed, and coconut trees were so badly damaged that nothing but the stumps were left.
So strong was the wind that a 600-gallon tank, full of water, was swept away from its stand and blown on top of a hill some distance away.
The cutter put into Komo the day before the “blow,” anchoring 50 yards off-shore.
She was filled with 420 bags of copra, and, when the hurricane struck her. she heeled over and sank, damaging the small boat.
The crew, with a Chinese passenger, took to a raft, but were blown out towards the reef and the open sea. After they had been drifting for three hours, the wind changed and blew them back to the beach.
The islands of Moce, Kabara and Oneata were also devastated. Coconut plantations were razed, and only three native houses remained undamaged at Oneata and two at Moce. Dilo trees that had been growing
for a hundred or more years were up rooted by the wind.
On the fringe of the hurricane, Moala Island, 100 miles westward from Komo, escaped the havoc, only a few houses being blown down.
The presence of the hurricane was first reported by the wireless station at Fakaofa in the Tokelau Group, near Western Samoa. Apparently it travelled southwards, passing to the west of Samoa, and con tinued on to Keppel’s Island (Niuato butabu) in Tonga, The “blow” was most severe at Keppel’s Island, which has been the storm-centre of almost every hurricane in the Pacific for the last six years.
From Tonga the hurricane veered south west and, slightly decreasing in intensity, hit the Lau Islands.
This disturbance, probably, was respon sible for the phenomenal storm which swept over Northern New Zealand about the same period, and caused eleven deaths and much destruction.