TRAIL OF DAMAGE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 2

TRAIL OF DAMAGE

FLOODS RECEDING GISBORNE STILL ISOLATED (P.A.) GISBORNE, this day. The flood waters which covered thousands of acres of fiat lend in the district in the worst flood since 1916, are receding, leaving a trail of damage, among the worst features of which are loss of production for some months to come because of deep silting and also the destruction of farm crops.

A large ar&a used for vegetable production contracts has also been inundated.

Rail communications are still suspended, and there are prospects of weeks of work before normal conditions are restored. The railway is still covered to depths of up to a foot for several miles, while slips still block the line on the hill section.

All the roads remain blocked, and no mails can be exchanged with other districts by overland routes, but a launch loaned by the Air Force was used to-day to take mails to and from Napier. If possible an air dispatch to Wellington will be made this afternoon.

Running a "banker" in its higher reaches, the Waimata River stripped many trees from points along its course, where erosion occurred. A large number of these trees have been carried down to Turanganui and a proportion of them became jammed in the piers of the William Pettie bridge. This bridge, which links Rutene Road with the lower Ormond Road, is a wooden structure about 27 years old, and is mounted on piers comprising groups of wooden piles. One of these piers has been pushed out of alignment by the flood waters, and the fastincreasing blockage of trees and smaller debris.