FEARSOME NIGHT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 27, 30 December 1939, Page 2

FEARSOME NIGHT

CAMPER’S EXPERIENCE. SEQUEL TO CLOUDBURST. WELLINGTON, Dec. 29. An amazing story of a cloudburst and slips at Orongorongo was brought to Petone to-day by a camper, Mr B. Durrant, of Korokoro, who lost In's car and suffered privations throughout the heavy rainfall on Tuesday night. He described the scenes of desolation around tho Riddiford station homestead, which was wrecked by a tremendous slide of earth and rock. “You can have no idea of what happened,” he said. “The whole configuration of tlie country has been altered. My companion, Mr Y. Radcliffe, and I arrived at Mr Riddiford’s homestead about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, intending to spend a few days shooting and fishing. Wo turned along the coast road, and about a mile and a-lialf further on decided, as the going was somewhat rough, to leave the car. I chose what appeared to bo an absolutely safe place in which to park the car, avoiding leaving it under any cliff faces for fear that rocks might fall on it. We then proceeded some 'distance further on and pitched our tent in a pleasant grove of karaka trees on a gentle slope, about thirty yards from a stream, which was then a tiny trickle. About 9 p.m. it commenced to rain, and soon the water was coming down in torrents. At midnight there must have been a cloudburst. The water was soon pouring through our tent, and we were wet through. “At 1 a.m., with a tremendous roar, a slip occurred and in tho morning we saw that hundreds of thousands of tons of earth and rocks had slipped down the hillside a few yards from our tent. The slip was a quarter of a mile high and tlie same distance across. We dared not move till daylight, as we had no idea of what had happened, hut just hung,on to our tent till morning. DESOLATE SCENE. “Daylight,” continued Mr Durrant, “revealed a scene of absolute desolation. Practically the whole of the coast road was buried under from 50 to 60 slips and the. strange thing was that it was not cliff faces that came away, hut the whole hillsides of gentle slopes which everyone considered perfectly safe. “On the way along we picked up throe voung men who had been in a cave. The whole of the slope above the car, however, had slipped down and the car was half covered, some of the rocks round it being over ten feet in diameter. When we got there the slip was still moving, and as we watched we saw the car gradually covered till only the roof was showing. There, I am afraid the car will have to remain as, even if it could he uncovered, huge rocks and debris are lying for a hundred yards round it.”