BIG WAVE AT NGAKAWAU

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28908, 30 May 1959, Page 12

BIG WAVE AT NGAKAWAU

' • »■ Slight Damage To Property A wive at ieest 20ft high swept into ibe small mining town ot Ngakawau, on the West Coast, yesterday afternoon damaging the interior of one bouse and breaking into two garages; Mr F. J. Neilsen- and .hi* family..evacuated their hpu«e *s * precaution and are at frreshnt living in a vacant house in tire township. Residents of the jtowp ,were last evening repairing damage done by the wave but were not unduly worried about It ■ 1 “It was Ricky that it was a neap tide otherwise it could have been a ! bit disastrous,” said one resident. “I praa chopping sticks. I went round the corner of the woodshed and was met bjr a wall of water about .waist high.” A high wind had whipped up the sea and this 'was claimed to be the reason for the wave. It was a. “very big wave which came in oh. tin angle over a Shingle bank lined with betrol drums and entered four sections. Carpets and a refrigerator were damaged in the house which it entered, and several yards of fence were torn down.

Car Denied “Other! were luckier and had their back doors shut and so kept out the water. In one of the garage* it entered there was a car, but fortunately it had its handbrake on and was only dented a little bit,” said a resident. “There is no big flood. We *re quite w bank, which is about 15 yards wide, and then spread from 50 to 75 yards on to th* road nearby. Eyewitnesses’ estimates differed over the height of the wave, but it was claimed that it would have to be gt least :30ft higfa to surmount the shingle bank and petrol drums.

There had been big waves in the district in the past and there would probably be more in the future, said a Ngakawau man. The residents hope that the Government will be able to do something to give more protection from heavy seas.