WHIRLWIND DEMOLISHES CHURCH

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34149, 10 May 1976, Page 1

WHIRLWIND DEMOLISHES CHURCH

(From Our Own Reporter » GREYMOUTH. May 9. A whirlwind injured three people and demolished a historic Maori church at Arahura, five miles north of I lokitika. on Saturday evening.

A child was taken to Grey Hospital after the bus shelter in which she was waiting with three others was blown over. She was discharged after treatment.

Passengers in a Railwrws Road Sendee bus travelling from Hokitika to Greymouth saw what appeared to be two fireballs racing in from the sea and lighting up the sky as they approached Arahura. The storm lashing the West Coast at that stage reduced visibility severely, and in Arahura, the driver of the bus (Mr L. G. V. Harcourt, of Greymouth) was stopped suddenly by a woman cradling a child who was apparently injured. The child had been sheltering with another, and Mr Sammy Tainui, of Invercargill, a young man .»’ho was waiting for the bus, when the whirlwind struck. Mrs Rona Tainui, who was also waiting, was blown into a ditch, but was unhurt.

She picked up the child, who had apparently been struck by a piece of wood. The other child and Mr Sammy Tainui, who was also struck by a piece of flying timber, did not require medical attention. After the bus was halted, calls were made for an ambulance and the police. The whirlwind first hit an old shack, lifting it up and carrying it about 40ft and smashing it against a house. The impact collapsed the tyres of a nearby station waggon. The whirlwind then carried on, smashed the church, leaving only its wooden bell-tower standindg, then crossed the road, demolishing the bus shelter beside the railway line, wrecking a railway telephone box, and cutting a swathe through nearby scrub before hitting the hillside with a loud bang, strewing iron and timber everywhere. A piece of sheet iron the wind flung into the air, landed across some power lines and caused a twohour power cut that extended as far as Greymouth.

The church was the 105-year-old St Paul's Anglican church, which was a landmark in the Arahura Maori pa.

Services have been held fairly regularly in St Paul's but it has recently not been served by a local vicar. The last vicar of Kumara (the Rev. D. T. Manning), in whose parish the church was, is now vicar of Belfast in Canterbury.

It had been arranged however, for the incoming vicar of Harihari to conduct services there regularly.

The vicar of Hokitika (the Rev. R. T. Rowe) advised the Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt Rev. W. A. Pyatt) of the mishap and with two of his churchwardens and the parishioners of St Paul's worked with hand lamps cutting through the wreckage on Saturday night to find some of the church's valuable property.

Its principal Item of interest, a six-inch greenstone cross mounted on a communion plate, was found after one of the collapsed walls was cut in half with a chain-saw. The cross was broken in three places, but will be repaired. “We managed to save most of the things that were valuable,” said Mr Rowe. “We recovered the church's organ, which was tipped on its side under the debris.”

The goods recovered will be stored until examined by insurance assessors.

Most of the houses in the vicinity were comparatively unscathed. Mr Rowe believed that if a house had been hit directly instead of the church, serious injuries would have resulted. The church was built on 18-inch piles, below the level of the road, and the wind apparently got under it and lifted it intp the air.

The path of the whirlwind appeared to be no more than a chain wide. It is not known whethe the church will be replaced. This will depend on the amount of insurance, and replacement costs.