STILL HEAVY RAIN

Evening Star, Issue 21716, 10 May 1934, Page 13

STILL HEAVY RAIN

BUT FLOODS ABATE [Per United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, May .9. Although heavy rain is still lulling and a southerly storm continues.with a violence scarcely abated, the plight «l the unhappy people of Little River is better, to-day than it has been since Saturday morning, when the hood waters rose to dangerous heights. Attempts to open the outlet Iroin Lake Forsyth to the sea succeeded last evoking after much arduous toil and not without risk. Ordinarily it is considered hopeless to endeavour to open the outlet in a southerly storm because the seas close it almost immediately, but on this- occasion the heavy pressure of water at an unprecedented Jewel in the lake created a scour sufficient to overwhelm the force of tho waves. An opening of a few yards only was cut in the shingle spit, but this quickly widened to 70yds, and the water rushed out through a wide and deep channel efforts are now being concentrated on repairing the Little River water supply. Many houses are now without water because pipes hard been carried away or smashed. The train service is now normal, and the trains are carrying water in tanks, and this has provided some relief. Rain water is also being saved in all available receptacles. The service cars got through today, but /with their running hoards awash in (places where the road is still covered hjv water. It is impossible to give any* reliable estimate of the amount of the damage. Bridges have gone, roads have been washed away or blocked by slips. Harm lands have been scoured away or are covered with a deposit of clay, shingle, boulders, dead timber, and other flood debris. Renees have been destroyed or damaged, and houses are in an indescribable condition, It is almost impossible to account the losses of stock. Much of the roadway has entirely disappeared. A waterfall which crashed down on tho road, scouring a dep hole, emerged from a settler’s cowshed above the highway. Communication lias been restored with some of the valleys previously isolated, but with others no normal communication will be possible for weeks. One of those isolated by the slips is Commander Hall, of Peraki. He cannot reach Little River even with horses. His homestead, one of the best on the Peninsula, narrowly escaped being washed away. Commander Hall spent some time to-day removing eels from the rooms in Ins house. The ground over which the flood passed is littered with eels. 'The slips on the Peninsula are numberless. The whole district will he permanently scarred. The rain, after a cessation yesterday, began again last night and fell steadily all to-day in Christchurch. Since the commencement of the storm 6.55 in have fallen—an unprecedtented rainfall for the Canterbury Plains. On the Peninsula the amount has been very. much greater.