ORDEAL ON RAFT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 33, 9 February 1939, Page 9

ORDEAL ON RAFT.

I FIJIANS BLOWN TO SEA. j FIVE DAYS AFLOAT. J (Prom On? Own Correspondent.) j SUVA, January 27. { Dining the height of Saturday's floods' a Fijian and hi* wife, with their fivej j children and another man. who werei I living beside a oreek on the Xavua River. j fearing that the flood waters were going j to reach them, embarked on a bamboo raft. The raft rapidly disappeared and it was not until last evening that it was brought ashore at Xaselai village. The raft had drifted some GO miles I and the party had been adrift from ,j Saturday morning until the following j Thursday night, when the raft drifted jolose to a reef at Mumbulau. and qne 1 of the Fijians ewani ashore and reported ;the matter. ,J The Fijians were fairly well when I rescued, although t'neir bodies were very .'swollen. One of the rive children wa" ; four months old. The raft had drifted out between th( islands of Batiki and Nairai before beinj t blown back to Viti Levu. It is mar i, vellous how the Fijians survived i especially during the hurricane.