THREE LIVES LOST

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 21, 23 December 1938, Page 2

THREE LIVES LOST

PLUNGE OVER CLIFF. ....... ROTORUA, Dec, 23. Plunging over a 600 ft cliff on the Alaeranui Hill, 25 miles from Opotiki, on the Gisborne highway,-at about dusk last night, a car carried three Public Works Department employees to their deaths, while another man, the driver, was seriously injured. Those killed are Charles Norden, George Ashley and Thomas Hughes. The driver, Kitchener, suffered a fractured arm and shock.

The four men were employees from a camp at Omaio, half-way between Cape Runaway and Opotiki. They had leifc for their holidays at about 2 p.m. yesterday in Kitchener's two-seater car, and it was dusk-when they arrived at the scene of the tragedy. At this point the road is wide, but on one side is flanked by a sheer cliff. As the vehicle plunged from the road the men- were thrown out one by one, the last victim leaving the car about a (• chain from a tree which finally stopped the vehicle’s progress. A man named -Dodd was the first to arrive after the tragedy, and was just in time to see Hitchener scrambling back to the road. Air Dodd sent his wife back to Alaeranui. and soon 12 workmen, the .police and doctors were qn the spot to, commence the arduous task of recovering the bodies, which had not all been brought up by 1 a.m.