The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-23 00:00:00

The Great Storm at Rio.

A letter from Rio Janeiro gives the following additional
particulars of the great storrc which visited that city on the
evening of the 10th of October :—" Until now I have looked
upon accounts of hailstones of the size of hen's eggs as
myths, but on this occasion I saw and handled enough of
them to banish my incredulity in this respect for ever.
Every window in this city which faced the south-west was
destroyed, the panes of glass being taken out as cleanly as.if
the work had been done by the hated of an experienced
glazier. Trees were uprooted, even houses were blown down,
but the worst of all that happened was the fearful loss of life
in the bay. I am surryito say that three officers:(non-commis-
sioned) of her Majesty's ship Egmont were the first vic-
tims. Their boat was caught in the squall and capsized
immediately. The greatest exertions were made by the offi-
cers and crew of a Brazilian corvette, the Bahiana, which
was anchored near the scene of the disaster, but they only
arrived in time to secure one of the drowning officers, wbo
was taken still alive on board of the corvette, and oarefally
attended to both by the doctor on board and also by the
surgeon of his own ship, but all in vain. Admiral Elliot and
his lady were returning from the Gloria in their launch
with a boat's crew of 18 sailors, and were also placed in the
most imminent danger. They could not approach their
vessel, the Bombay, but were fortunately driven alongside
a French merchant ship, which had just entered the harbour
which received them all on board. The launch, which was
full of water and hailstones, went to the bottom as soon as
the last man left it. The Commander of the Bombay and
his boat's crew had, if possible, a still more narrow escape.
Their boat was upset about half a mile from the fort, and
they saved themselves by clinging to its bottom till assist-
ance was rendered them. Sergeant Appodinaori Joaquim
de Almeida and a brave boat's crew irour the fort succeeded
in rescuing them, and took them to the fort. In all nine
merchant vessels were capsized at their anchorage, and many
lives were lost. The captain of the English barque Leigh-
ton, and Ws wife had a very narrow escape, being in the cabin
of the vessel at the time. Their son, however, a fine lad of
12 years of age, and some of the sailors, perished. The
damage done to merchandise in stores and in the custom-
house is immense, and you may form some idea of the
quantity of glass destroyed when I tell you that the gas
company estimate at 20,000 the number of panes required
to mend their lamps alone. The windows of my own room
were blown in, sashes and all, and on returning to it after
the violence of the storm had abated, I found the entire
floor covered with hailstones to the depth of two inches,
many of the stones and pieces of rough ice being larger than
hen's eggs, as I have before said. The trees in the Rua
Direita were as completely stripped of their leaves as our
own oaks are in winter, and the marks left upon their
branches were precisely like those which would be caused
by a volley of rifle balls. This terrible storm lasted about
15 minutes, and the damage which it has done is estimated
at 5,000,000r5. or about £550,000, Strangely enough, it
does not seem to have extended beyond the city and
suburbs, which is very fortunate, as if it had been general
we should have had no coffee crop for the coming year."