Private letters from St. Peter...burg, to the 7th instant, report
a most terrific storm of wind and rain which visited the city and lasted for forty-eight hours: 400 houses were destroyed; and at one time fears were entertained for the safety of the entire city.
A fearful accident happened on Thursday to an express-train on the Manches- ter and Leeds Railway, near Halifax. While the train was in full career, the last carriage got off the rails—from the oscillation, it is surmised, which was caused by the violence of the wind; and before the train could be stopped, the carriage had struck the abutments of some of the bridges: it was nearly de- stroyed; one passenger, Mr. Gillard the superintendent of the telegraph, was thrown out by the concussion, and killed on the spot; another passenger, Mr. Ro- bert Weston, the Surveyor-General of Customs, was found in the carriage dread- fully mangled, and his clerk Mr. Moon seriously hurt. Mr. Weston died in a few hours.
Another accident occurred at the Hadleigh station of the Eastern Union Rail- way, from the falling of a newly-built wall; which was blown down by the wind on a number of persons who were waiting on the platform to go by the Ipswich train. No one was killed; but about sixty persons were more or leas hurt, nine very severely.
Previous page
