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A huge accident precipitated by massive rains (several feet in 33 hours) involving a large amount of construction material falling from Plantation Road on the Peak - taking out part of the Peak Tram tracks - and continuing all the way to Garden road - coupled with torrential rains caused flooding that was reported even in Australia and in the Illustrated London News.
Date picture taken
1 May 1889
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Reported in Australia
Reported in Australia
Northern Territory Times and Gazette Saturday 22 June 1889
On Mav the 29th, one of the most terrible rainstorms yet experienced, occurred in Hongkong, causing a terrible amount of damage to property and loss of life...
From the Plantation Road level, a locality which is always dangerous under such conditions, the whole side of a steep embankment gave way. A great mass of earth and boulders crashed down into the narrow ravine traversed by the tramway line, carried away the top of the tramway embankment, making a breach in it about a hundred yards in extent, and continuing its disastrous course down the ravine, blocked up the storm-water tunnel which runs beneath the service reservoir, and overflowed into the reservoir itself. The torrent of rain water which was then rushing down the ravine being thus checked, poured into the reservoir and overflowed in a cataract on the other side. The sloping wall of earth which served as a buttress to the reservoir wall, was speedily torn away by the water rushing down over it, and in an incredibly short space of time the huge wall of the reservoir was left entirely without support, to bear the enormous pressure of water and mud behind it.
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[Ed Note: As a testament to the enginers of the Water Services Department, the reservoir wall held, even though the earth embankment was washed away.]
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