An intense storm which ravaged Malta and Gozo 40 years ago on Friday left four people dead and caused mayhem.

Monsoon-like rain on the afternoon of Thursday, October 25, 1979, turned streets into raging rivers, trapping people in floating cars and flooding scores of properties.

Dramatic rescues were carried out by the police and the army, but the storm was a horror story for a number of families.

In Misraħ Kola, Attard, a 55-year-old woman, Vivienne Huntingford, was trapped in the basement of her house by a sudden rush of water which quickly flooded it.

Her husband desperately tried to rescue her, but there was nothing he could do.

In Qormi, Anthony Galea, 64, was driving home with his wife and niece after visiting a relative at St Vincent de Paul Home.

A torrent of water flooded their car. They abandoned it, but were immediately carried away. The women were rescued but Mr Galea was missing for hours. His lifeless body was eventually found in a field in Mdina Road, Qormi.

Another victim, Briton John Herbert Moore, 51, was found dead the next day at the Marsa sports ground having gone missing some miles away, in Siġġiewi.

He and his wife had abandoned their car when it was flooded by storm water. His wife held to a tree branch for dear life, and was rescued by a  group of people but Mr Moore was dragged away by the swirling waters, down the valley and all the way to Marsa where he was found under a bridge amid a maze of vegetation and debris.

The fourth victim was Lorraine Wales, 39, an English tourist. Her body was found in the sea at Salina by two hunters, two days after the storm. Mrs Wales had been miles away, in a car at Chadwick Lakes with her husband and two other men when their vehicle was carried away.

Cows swimming in the floodwaters

Many properties were flooded. At least one horse drowned in a garage in the Birkirkara valley close to where the McDonalds restaurant is now located.  

In Qormi, residents reported cows trying to swim in the floodwaters. At Żebbuġ, some 800 chickens died when their cages were swept away.

Also at Żebbuġ, a fireworks factory was hit by lightning, but no one was injured.
Such was the power of the floodwaters that scores of cars and vans were dragged ‘like cardboard boxes’ according to a Times of Malta report of the time.

Twelve vehicles including two vans ended up in a large heap of twisted metal under the Birkirkara bridge. Three cars were stacked on top of each other. 
It was even worse in Gozo, where 26 cars were swept into the sea at Xlendi. 

Dramatic rescues

A 19-year-old girl was also swept into the bay, but was rescued.

Also rescued, in the nick of time, was a girl in a Ford Transit van belonging to the Salina Bay Hotel. The van ended up in the graveyard of cars in Birkirkara. 

In Marsa, some 30 people were trapped at the sports ground and some of them, including a pregnant woman, were rescued by a helicopter of the Armed Forces of Malta in what was their first major rescue operation since the departure of the British forces earlier that year. Others were ferried on dinghies.

Inevitably, traffic ground to a halt with many people trapped at their place of work during what was supposed to be the rush hour. 

But it was worse for some 130 workers at the pig farm in Comino. The patrol boat which usually picked them up could not make the crossing. They were given shelter at the Comino Hotel.

Roads and boundary walls in several localities collapsed, notably in St Paul’s Bay, in Attard near Wied Inċita, in Burmarrad and along a section of Msida Valley Road, where bulldozers had to be used to remove the debris. 

Many homes in Msida and St Paul’s Bay were under metres of water and had to be evacuated. Several properties in Main Street, St Paul’s Bay was later declared unsafe.

Two days after the storm, part of the parvis in front of Ta’ Pinu church in Gozo collapsed and two statues of the Way of the Cross fell into a field.

The bad weather had continued for a few more days, with three cars being swept into the sea at Wied il-Mielaħ in Gozo.

Following the storm, the government announced special financial assistance for farmers who had seen extensive damage to crops and property. The curias in

Malta and Gozo also set up solidarity funds and made their own donations. Collections on All Souls Day were channeled to the fund.

Another bad storm in 1982

The 1979 storm was the worst, in terms of victims until that date, but it was matched in 1982 by another storm, on October 11.

In contrast to 1979, the fatalities were caused by building collapses, possibly as a result of a strong wind that had accompanied the rain. 

A husband and wife died when the roof of their house caved in at Arcades Street, Paola. A 70-year-old woman from Zurrieq also died when a three-storey house where she worked as a maid in Sliema collapsed.

The fourth victim, a 20-year-old man, died in Hamrun when the ceiling of his bedroom caved in.

‘Spooky coincidence’

In what Times of Malta had described as a ‘spooky coincidence’, another big storm hit Malta on October 25, 2010, the 31st anniversary of the 1979 storm, dumping a record 102 millimetres of rain in 24 hours.

Although no one was killed the scene was still macabre in Qormi where an undertaker’s store was flooded and a large number of (empty) coffins ended up floating in the floodwaters.