COLLAPSE OF CLIFF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 201, 26 August 1933, Page 13

COLLAPSE OF CLIFF.

INQUEST ON TWO CHILDREN.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HASTINGS, Friday.

A verdict tliat the deaths of two girls, Esma Flora Hunter and Gertrude Jean Hart, resulted from injuries received through accidentally falling over a cliff at Puketitiri was returned by a jury at the inquest held yesterday.

Evidence given by Joyce Kathleen Hunter, aged eight years, a sister of one of the deceased, was that the three little girls 071 Wednesday morning left their home intending to go to the river, about two miles away. They found the track leading to the river and had started to walk down it, when Gertie Hart slipped and disappeared over the cliff. Esma Hunter then ran to the spot where Gertie had disappeared, and she too vanished. The little girl, Joyce, finding they did not return, went home and told relatives what had happened. All three children had been to the river before, but not to the spot where the accident occurred.

Edward Herbert English, manager of PajJaututu station, said that after being informed of the disappearance of the two girls he made a search and found them lying at the foot of the cliff. Both were dead. The children had been warned not to leave the house and go to the river unless accompanied by an elder.