Lighters sunk, flooding and damages reported as cyclone clips Mauritius | 1896 Mauritius cyclone

Track map of the 1896 Mauritius cyclone. Track data retrieved from NOAA’s International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) data. Track made from TrackGen of CodingCactus (https://trackgen.codingcactus.codes/).

From February 19–20, a tropical cyclone passed over the island of Mauritius, bring over 1,000 millimeters of rain and flooding areas of the British crown colony.

Over 52 inches (1,348 millimeters) of rainfall reportedly drenched the island over the course of 5 days. Pamplemousses District recorded 490.7 mm (19.32 inches) of rain on February 20 alone. This crippled the means of transportation in the island, like roads and bridges; a number of lighters offshore having been sunk due to the storm and widespread flooding being reported across the territory. Warehouses loaded with sugar and other products were damaged, alongside cane crops, but the plantations were relatively unscathed.

With collected information from the following: Trove Australia, Papers Past — National Library of New Zealand, and Climatologie du Sud-Ouest de l’océan Indien : le cas de l’île Maurice by Jean Le Borgne in 1987, via Google Books.