Storm and Loss of Life at Pondicherry
Times and Seasons, vol. 1, p. 159
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
The Paris Temps publishes accounts from Pondicherry of the 22d Jan. and from Yanaon, French factory about 250 miles along the coast from that city, up to the 7th of December, which contain numerous details of the dreadful hurricane and inundation of the sea on that coast. They coincide in stating the force of the wind to have been such as had never before been witnessed there, and the inroad of the sea as dreadful beyond description. Upwards of ten thousand corpses had been found, but many thousands more had, no doubt been washed away. So many bodies lying unburied had caused a pestilence, and the condition of the survivors, who had lost most of their property, was exceedingly distressing. The British authorities and settlers had shown the greatest kindness to the French sufferers, but the factory town of and Yanaon, which alone had lost 1,500 inhabitants, could not recover from such a calamity for a great many years. The Government chest and most of the public records had been preserved. As instances of the extensive scale on which this great natural calamity acted, it is mentioned that at Talarivou one house, in which 400 persons had taken refuge; was blown down, and most of them killed, while at Malavoram, a village on the English territory, only 49 were saved out of 2000 inhabitants.-New World.