THIRTY INCHES OF RAIN

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 110, 10 May 1923, Page 4

THIRTY INCHES OF RAIN

SCENES OP DESOLATION AND -RUIN. ■ : ;"OHRISTCHUBCH I .Sth May. 'Incredible as ;.it; may.' seem to,'-, those outside; the. '.locality,, 'the-. t ;f^cfc"iemains, that :from the tanie'the 'rain on Friday morning up'"to 9 .a.m. torday; the rainfall recorded, in Waiau: township was 19.78 inches. At "Keinton Combe" there was the still more phenomenal fall Df 30.81 inches. On every hand are scenes of desola-; ti'on and ruin. The lower lands around Waiau township are covered with.silt to a .considerable depth. Masses of debris of every description, fences, and trees bear eloquent testimony to the height ib& .flood waters reached. The river flats, which for many years have been Rood ' grazing lands, are now _ barren, every vestige of vegetation having been swept off. The farmers have come into Vyaiait;,townßhip on horseback, the only means of transit for any distance at pret;ent, -arid "all testify to , the tremendous alteration in the configuration of the country in the different parts, but all. state they have not yet'fiad an opportunity of ascertaining, their loss in stock, though all agree the losses must be heavy.... .. ■ ■. ... ? No' description in words can convey any adequate idea of the alterations in the landscape. Actual seeing only could convey a truo mcture. On Lyndon No. J'Settlement the fences have been swept away in all directions, and small water-, courses have become river-beds. Old watercourses ; which perhaps forty years ago carried water in the times of fiood, but which for, as long as the oldest settler can remember have been dry, and in which cabbage trees and willows have beea growing, for many years, have been scoured out. The cabbage trees have,been swept away, and willow trees two feet in diameter torn out by the roots. A bed of shingle, some chains 5n width, remains to give some slight idea of the volume.of water that' swept across the country. It may incidentally be mentioned that one farm residence Btands some twenty feet above a. stream, but at the highest of the flood a rise of another two feet would have brought water-info the.hbuse,. ..'.' .. . ''.'. The floods have subsided sufficiently between-Kaiapoi and R&ngiora. to allow trains to be run to Cheviot. The line, however, is still in a very bad state.