VOLCANO ASH

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 150, 22 December 1945, Page 9

VOLCANO ASH

FOULS WATER SUPPLY

PATIENTS LEAVE CHATEAU P.A. AUCKLAND, December 21. The water supply of the Chateau Tongariro has been so fouled with ash from Mount Ruapehu that all the mental hospital patients at the chateau are being evacuated to Ravensthorpe convalescent depot at Bombay. A special train will leave Waiouru early tomorrow morning with about 180 female patients and 30 members of the staff. It is due at Drury shortly before Sp.m., and the patients will then be taken to Ravensthorpe by road.

Preparations for transferring the chateau patients to Ravensthorpe have been in hand for some time, and to that extent the move is a routine matter. However, it has been hastened by the serious deterioration in the quality ol the water. This is drawn from a stream fed by Ruapehu's snow slopes. Recently it has been polluted by considerable deposits of ash which have been blown off the mountain.

The ash has also interfered seriously with the efficiency of the chateau s powerhouse and has made other conditions increasingly unpleasant and inconvenient. .... Though the last of the military patients at Ravensthorpe had already been sent to other hospitals, members of the staff were still in residence when the decision was made to accelerate the transfer of the mental hospital patients. Other necessary details had also to be completed. However, the Army adjusted its arrangements to the new circumstances and everything is expected to be in readiness for the chateau patients when they arrive. The chateau has been in use as a mental hospital since October, 1942. It was taken over for the accommodation, of female patients after Porirua Mental Hospital had been damaged by earthquake. Ravensthorpe has been a service convalescent depot for about three "years. It consists of a number of well-built and comfortable wooden buildings on a pleasantly-wooded site at the foot of Bombay Hills on the Great South Road, a few miles beyond Drury.