1874 Hong Kong typhoon

Modern analysis in 2017 indicated that this great typhoon passed approximately 50 to 60 km to the south of Hong Kong at its closest approach, similar to Hato in 2017.

The town had sustained great loss, its roads were deserted and strewn with debris, house roofs were ruined, windows shattered and walls fallen and cables and gas pipes were blown away and trees uprooted.

At this time Hong Kong did not have its own weather observatory and many people were expecting the storm from a different direction, while others were caught off guard and either shipwrecked or lost their homes.

The next morning, the Praya scene from west to east was heart-rending: one could easily find boats capsized and corpses floating and drifting on the water with some bodies washed ashore by the high tides.

[8] A visitor arriving on a steamer from Peking during the typhoon reported that the waterfront was nearly swept away, hardly a tree was left standing in the Botanical Gardens and many buildings were found roofless and in ruins.

[9] Following the incident, Brazilian astronomer Francisco Antônio de Almeida, in his 1879 account describes an episode of arson and looting at two warehouses in which foreigners were murdered, for which the two Chinese perpetrators were sentenced to death.

Almeida also cites English newspapers of the time who estimated up to eight thousand people killed in the typhoon, many of them being Spanish families fleeing the Carlist Wars, and originally bound for the Philippines.

[10] Captain Superintendent of Police Walter Meredith Deane attracted severe criticism for ordering his men confined to barracks rather than to risk rescue of the crews on the wrecked vessels Leonor and Albay.