TWO TRAINS DERAILED

Press, Issue 30997, 1 March 1966, Page 1

TWO TRAINS DERAILED

Flash Floods

Cause Havoc (New Zealand Pre.au Aatociatwn) AUCKLAND, Feb. 28. Two goods trains, one pulling 20 waggons, were derailed by flash floods near Papakura tonight. The double crash was one more incident in an evening of havoc after torrential rains in the Auckland area.

Swirling floodwaters six feet deep blocked roads, and slips added to the havoc. Hundreds of homes from St. Heliers to Howick were flooded. Power supplies and telephone lines were cut.

The flood waters gouged out the twin tracks between Papakura and Drury in a flash flood which came about 9 p.m. at a point about one and a half miles south of Papakura. About 15 chains of double railway track have been washed away and the two trains are stranded amid the debris and rubble swept down by the water. The south-bound train going to Rotorua was stopped about a mile south of Papakura when about 20 waggons were derailed, six of them coming to rest on .their sides. Part of the line was swept against a fence. A north-bound train was cut off about a mile further south with one waggon derailed. A Railway Department spokesman said it was considered it would be two days before any rail traffic could get south of Papakura. Home-going city workers were held up in long traffic jams as a series of nose-to-tail collisions blocked the Harbour Bridge. Similar smashes caused

long delays on the eastern exit roads. The curtain of rain and slippery roads were to blame.

Howick, Papakura and the eastern suburbs of Auckland were hardest hit by the storm. Howick was at one stage reported to be under several feet of water, with only three roads passable. The main road to Bucklands Beach was closed by threefoot floods and in Papakura waist-deep waters flowed down Ballintine and Steward streets.

At Kaimarama, five miles from Whitianga, eight inches of rain fell between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m., with the heaviest downpour of 5.25 inches after 5 p.m. Old persons were evacuated to high ground in boats when floods swept through Kainana, 57 miles south of Auckland. A small stream became a torrent, according to Mr R. L. Martin, owner of the Kaiaua motor camp.

He said neck-deep floods had swamped the camp and he had been forced to lash a caravan to a fence to stop it being swept away. Roads on either side of Kaiaua were cut and a bridge near Pokeno was thought to have been swept away. Several stores had been flooded and damage was expected to run into several thousand pounds.