VIZAGAPATAM.
One of the worst cyclones the district has ever known occurred on the 7th and 8th of October 1876. At Vizagapatam it lasted from 4 P.M. on the 7th until 9 A.M. on the 8th, and fifteen inches of rain fell in eighteen hours. The centre (or calm area) of it passed over Bimlipatam and Vizianagram, travelling at the rate of three miles an hour. At the latter place the wind first blew from the north and north-east; then a perfect calm, lasting half an hour, followed; and then the gale suddenly sprang up from the opposite direction with even greater violence than before. These two towns naturally suffered less than the areas on either side of them. A fine French ship, the Jules Rose, was driven right across the Santapilly reef by a storm- wave going westwards, and her bottom was torn out and two of her crew drowned. The storm-wave rushed up the mouth of the backwater at Vizagapatam and the level of the backwater rose eight feet, the lower parts of the town were flooded, many boats were smashed, 600 houses collapsed and 30 lives were lost. The temporary jail and the infantry lines were again almost levelled with the ground by the wind, the rain got into the Collector's office and destroyed a great quantity of records, and the new dome of Mr. Narasinga Rao's observatory — a corrugated iron structure twelve feet in diameter and nine feet high which had been placed in position but not riveted down — was blown a distance of 33 feet. Buildings,trees, roads, and channels suffered everywhere, one-fourth of the salt stored in the pans was destroyed, and the bridges over the Góstani at Chittivalasa and over the Lángulya at Chicacole were washed away. The latter was choked by trees and other débris, the strong wind blowing up the stream would not let the water get away, and finally a high wave ran up the river and completed the destruction, the six centre arches collapsing.1[1]
In the autumn of 1878 two cyclones occurred on the coast within a month of one another, the first on the 5th of November and the second on the 6th to the 8th of December. The latter was the most disastrous the district has ever seen, as it was accompanied by very heavy rainfall (30 inches along the seaboard and twelve inches at the foot of the Gháts) which, coming at a time when the tanks were already brim full, caused floods which breached almost every large tank in the district and drowned hundreds of cattle and persons. The rain was heaviest in the Mádgole and Golgonda hills and consequently the damage was worst in the valley of the Sárada river. This stream was already
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- ↑ 1 For more details and many scientific observations and particulars, see Report on the Vizagapatam and Backergunge cyclones of October 1876 by Mr.J. Eliot, late Meteorological Reporter (Bengal Secretariat Press, 1877).
