Swamp Flows On To Farmland

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31863, 16 December 1968, Page 1

Swamp Flows On To Farmland

(New Zealand Press Association) HAMILTON, December 15. The 10-acre swampy floor of a small valley at Te Akau, 30 miles west of Ngaruawahia, flowed across a road and onto lush farmland shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday.

The landslide followed a cloudburst: and as water built i up at the back of the swamp, 1 about 80 yards across, the 1 mass of mud, water and reeds l began to surge forward. “It looked like a battleship coming towards me. After it ; crossed the road it spilled in two directions and blocked i the Mangati Stream for half a mile,” said Mr C. Parker, on ; whose property the swamp came to a halt.

The swamp moved at walking pace across the road. A telegraph pole was swept 20 feet, but remained upright and no lines were broken. Mr Parker said the front of the mobile swamp built up to as high as 10 feet at times. Ten acres of his 470-acre sheep farm are now covered with a mass of mud. debris and water up to 6ft deep in places. Mr Parker had moved 200 ewes from the area where the swamp finished only about 10 minutes before the landslide began. “They would not have stood a chance of surviving," be said. The road was blocked for only half an hour; a local contractor used a front-end loader to clear a path for traffic.