ONSLAUGHT OF THE FLOOD

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 112, 12 May 1923, Page 13

ONSLAUGHT OF THE FLOOD

DISASTROUS EFFECTS ON THE MIDLAND RAILWAY.

CHRISTCHURCH, ilth.May. Over many miles on the Midland line the track is broken or blocked by slips, washouts, breakages, and interruptions of various descriptions. At practically every yard there is evidence of the tremendous force of the onslaught made by the flood waters on the permanent ways. The 1 mere submergence of the line under masses of alluvial wreckage is too common a feature to be reckoned in the computation of the things that matter IB causing the blockage of a line. For miles _ and miles there is practically a chaotic miscellany of wreckage of various kinds from the embankments, hillsides, and the ballasting on the track side—some great, many small, ■ but all threatening the security of the line, and many involving the track itself. In the general catastrophe that seems to have fallen on the whole countryside, the damage to the line that reatters is contained in about live wiles that lie between Otarama and Broken' River Commencing at Otarama, the agencies of destruction have presented an inraes«ye prelude by the tearing away of about 150 feet of. hillside, leaving a chasm that is sufficiently impressive in its ugliness to cause a shudder The climax is near Broken River, and it is a fitting climax to so impressive a beginning. Here the water has chosen its ground so effectively that, filling will be as hopeless as a deviation is un - thinkable, and a bridge will have to he built The tunnel mouths, a few chains apart, look out on an awesome gap that opens almost at oije's feet, and presents a precipitous drop to the muddied waters of-the Broken River infinite dist-' ances below.

tof^A 6 ' aH mou! lta;n si<3es rear their scarred, disfigured) sides to remote heights, and the whole spectacle is that of an awful but cunningly-laid snare, challenging- the ingenuity of the repair gangs, and between these two impressive breaks there are smaller pictures m keeping. Away beyond Broken River there are, of course, other impediments to the traffic, but they are minor things. The real damage to the line is between Otarama and Broken River, and the worst damage is at the mouth of the No. 9 tunnel.