BANKS BURST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1938, Page 10

BANKS BURST.

CREEKS AND RIVERS.

TORRENTIAL RAIN.

TRANSPORT DISRUPTED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day. Road and rail facilities in Central ■Taranaki were disrupted during the early hours of this morning by raging torrents when creeks and rivers burst their banks following torrential rain.

The main road from New Plymouth to Ingle wood was buried feet deep for i quarter of a mile with swamp grass and slimy mud, and huge logs and ballast turn away fror ' oneath the railway line two miles north of Tariki. The highway to Stratford near that point was cut half away and only just escaped total destruction.

A night goods train running to New Plymouth from Wanganui crashr 1 on to a washed-out section of line and wa* derailed. Fortunately the engine kept to the track, and neither the driver nor the fireman were injured. Through traffic was impossible for many hours until the wreckage was cleared and the damaged track repaired.

So serious was the washout that a tragedy might easily have occurred. All the rivers rose many feet in the night, and the low-lying country for miles around Inglewood was one huge sheet of water. Everywhere mud and debris littered the countryside.

An far as could be ascertained to-day there was little destruction of stock. The rain storm spread over an area including most of the province, but fortunately the torrential downpour was restricted to a smaller area.' Where damage did occur it was of a major nature.