Demoine courier., 1854-08-31
A Storm in India.

The following report, says the Calcutta
Englishman. from correspondent. on
whom we can rely, of an awful pheho.
menon. happily unknown in temperate
climates, will be read with astonishment:
At three p. NJ, Of the 10th April,
while we were measuring The circum-
ference Of large hail-stones that fell
about US, terrific storm passed to the
south west of the station, abou, miles
off. The accounts brought by the ma
tives next morning were SO strange that
] die not believe Them, tu. after some
gentlemen had visited the spot. and con.
6rmed all, ], TOO, went to see the wreck
lett by the hurricane. As some days had
elapsed since the hurricane, l found il
impossible to approach the chaos from
the pulrefaclion of numbers of dead bod.
les. An eye witness told me that. while
II was blowing pretty stiff from the south
west, a jet black mass of cloud, towering
high alois and almos, touching the ground,
was seen TO approach; another similar
mass advancing rapidly from the oppo.
site direction. They whirled around
each other, the hea, became intense. and
enveloped in the greatest darkness, BAN
ooos, houses, trees, men, women, cattle
and dogs were hurled in the whirlwind.
dashed in all directions against trees, i'm
paled on bamboos, or buried in the rub.
bish. On the sides of the track of the
storm huge hail stones fell of the size
Of bricks. The track was about 500
yards broad; its length is not known, nor
the extent of The devastation ascertain
ed; sixty dead bodies were counted by
gentlemen who were there; fifteen per-
sons with limbs torn and mangled. with
broken arms and legs, are in the hospital.
The report says that three hundred have
been killed, beside no end of cattle.
think il very probable. As the natives
build their houses, each family in lille
separate farms. hid in clumps Of bushes,
with intermediate fields, the scene pre-.
sented is that Of numbers Of undistin.
guishable masses Of clumps of bam5oos
and trees torn up. crossing each other in
every direction, and blocked up with
earth and materials that had formed hu.s,
- entirely broken up tha. nothing could
be recognized as having formed roof or
sides. In fact, boxes, beds, and things
make Of planks, were SO broken into pie.
ces OF foot or two, thrown about, tha,
it was not always easy to imagine what
they had belonged to. From under the
masses Of rubbish. jackala and vul,ures
were pulling ou, the remains Of human
beings and cattle; in small puddles, dogs.
goats, &c., were drowned and rot,ing. -
The fields were covered with the skele-
tons of human beings. while the short
thick branches Of trees that stood Ieafess
and barkless, supported numbers of vul.
lures. Vultures covered the plair, too
gorged to fly a. our approach, and hun.
dreds were soaring in circles high over
head in the clear sky, marking in the
heavens the course Of the storm. One
poor, famished, distracted being. with
head bandsged, and body scratched all
over. bruised and cut. limped up to me;
he had los, all his relalions-father and
mother, wife and children-all had been
destroyed, and he could not find where
they had been carried to.
II would require hundreds of men to
remove The piles of uprooted bsmboos,
etc.. ,ha, marked the homesteads OF the
missing; under them will probably be
found those thai were killed. while some,
probably, had living grave, hoping,
alas! in vaiE. tha. rescue would come a,
last. or imagining. possibly, that the
whole world had been destroyed. A
bungalow Of zemidar, at Dumduma,
on the river Ghoghu. was blown across
the river-three hundred yards; in the
roof two men found a flying passage, and
strange 10 say, survived!