FLOOD TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 96, 24 April 1928, Page 7

FLOOD TRAGEDY.

FAMILY WIPED OUT

Raging Torrent Sweeps House

Away.

SEVEN LIVES LOST

(Received 11.30 a.m.)

BRISBANE, this day,

Reports from Rockhanipton regarding the floods indicate a terrible tragedy at Gelobera, in the Dawson Valley cotton area.

A whole farming family, consisting of Laurence Muldoon, A. Williams, and his wife and four children, with their house and its contents and every living thing, were washed away.

Only the blocks on which the house stood remained. The water rose 40 feet over the property, a raging torrent sweeping everything away.

Four men employed at a sawmill outside Rockhanipton took refuge in the trees and finally descended to a timber lorry where they were menaced by snakes, scorpions and ants, which were clinging to the debris about them.

At Rockhumpton the flood waters are still rising and the lower portions of the town and suburbs are becoming submerged. Torrential rain is falling. Twenty-five inches have been registered in three days.

Rescue parties in boats have so far saved more than .li»0 marooned people. The damage to property amounts to more than £20,000 at Mount Morgan alone.