TERRIFIC IMPACT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 23 August 1926, Page 9

TERRIFIC IMPACT.

WRECK OF PORT KEMBLA

A PASSENGER’S STORY. (BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.) AUCKLAND, Aug. 23. Dr. Birch, of Adelaide, a passenger by the Port Kembla, which was wrecked at San Salvador, West Indies, on ■Tilly 8, arrived here on Saturday by the Port Dunedin. He states that at 4 a.m. a terrific impact awakened everyone who was asleep. • The footplates in the engine-room buckled, under the feet of the men on watch. The emergency steam, pumps were started simultaneously with the reversal of the engines, but full power produced no movement. There was a hurried, inns-, tering on declo, and the lifeboats were swung out. A land, line showed, that the vessel was on a rocky bottom, and the inrush of water indicated that the hull was badly pierced through both skins. As daylight appeared it disclosed that the vessel was in the midst of a large reef area within two miles of the island. The weather being fine the crew worked for three days lightning the ship, nearly 2000 tons of coal being dumped. A salvage tug arrived on July 11 with special pump equipment, and on July 14 the steamer Venezuela conveyed the ten passengers to Colon, but, all efforts to float the Port Kembla failed. The hurricane caused, extensive damage, to the hull and rendered salvage impossible. The other passengers will arrive in Auckland bv the Corinthic to-morrow.