Cyclone In Noumea

Native Cutter Lost

From Our Own Correspondent

Noumea, Jan. 19.

STARTING on Monday evening, Jan- O uary 17, and lasting until mid-day on Tuesday, when it ended with startling abruptness, the Noumea area has experienced one of New Caledonia’s seasonal cyclones.

Low-lying camps were flooded and hundreds of tents blown down and build ings wrecked, and the town itself suffered damage to property from high wind and falling trees. Although some discomfort was suffered, military areas were soon restored to normal and help given to clear up the debris which littered the town.

So far, the most serious incident re ported is the loss of the native-operated cutter, “Laura,” which, since she was built in 1935, has provided the Noumea market regularly with cargoes of fruit, vegetables and pigs from Mare, the most productive of the Loyalty Islands, where lives her owner, grand chief Naisseline.

The cutter has also brought over many native recruits for the Free French Army and Navy, and labourers for work at Noumea docks under the direction of the American Army.

When she went down, the “Laura” was approaching the Woodin Canal, which is named after an old English sandalwood trader of cannibal days. Fifteen of her occupants managed to swim ashore through raging seas, to reach Cap N’Dua, New Caledonia’s south-westernmost tip, where there is a lonely lighthouse. Three other people on board, including two native women, have not been found, and it is feared they were drowned.

The cyclone was in no way comparable

with the terrible hurricane which struck the island m April, 1933, or with other disastrous cyclones which occur, the locals say, roughly about every 10 years.