SHIPPING MISHAP

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 August 1924, Page 5

SHIPPING MISHAP

STEAMER CRASHES INTO WHARF TWO KILLED; THREE INJURED. DEFECTIYE STEERING GEAR. BY CABLE —PRES 3 ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT SYDNEY, Ang. 28. A serious harbour accident occurred at noon on the ferry steamer Kareela, which, on leaving Circular Quay, bumped into the end of the Peninsular Company’s wharf. The accident was supposedly due to defective steering gear. Mrs Brown was killed and four other people were injured. So heavy was the impact that the steamer cut right into the wharf, smashing the deck fittings in the saloon, where a number of passengers, luckily not many, were sitting. Mi’s Brown was almost decapitated.

Ihe wounded were jammed among the debris. The other passengers climbed on to the wharf or were taken off by ferry steamers, which came to the scene immediately. So tightly was the Kareela embedded in the wharf that three tugs were required to drag her free. The whole forepart of the steamer was smashed and collapsed. The hull was not much damaged. Later information states that all the victims of the smash were a family party, representing four generations. Mrs Brown, the great-grandmother, is the dead woman; her daughter and granddaughter have fractured limbs; and the latter’s infant daughter has a fractured skull.

The child whose head was fractured later succumbed.