FLOOD DAMAGE REPORTS

Northern Advocate, 23 March 1936, Page 3

FLOOD DAMAGE REPORTS

WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE? Evidently the complaint made recently that Whangarei newspapers did the town an ill service by making so much of the recent floods can be laid at another door. Here at least is a translation of three paragraphs which appeared in the “Libre Belgique/’ Belgium, on the 4th February last. As will be noticed the news is dated from Wellington.

SOME DILUVIAN RAINS. HAVE DEVASTATED NEW ZEALAND. CATTLE AND SHEEP HAVE PERISHED. IN THOUSANDS.

Wellington, Feb. 3.—The partial restoration of telephonic and telegraphic communications permit a better apj predation than was possible yesterday of the extent of the damage caused by the tempest which struck the whole of the north of the island on Sunday. The Auckland district is inundated by a heavier fall of rain than any which has been recorded during twenty years, attaining at Whangarei eleven inches (28cms.) in twenty-four hours. The streets of the town have been transformed into veritable torrents. The Hawke’s Bay district has been especially affected; one farmer there lost a thousand sheep as a result of the inundation.

In the district of Pakowai the orchards have been devastated and the damage amounts to £60,000. This rises to £200,000 in the Manawatu district .

,At Waikugurau, Hawke’s Bay, the river Tukitiki broke its dikes and inundated the neighbouring farms, compelling seventy families to leave their homes. Thousands ''of sheep and cattle have been drowned.