A CENTRAL OTAGO TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1014, 7 August 1891, Page 28

A CENTRAL OTAGO TRAGEDY.

THREE MEN KILLED BY AN AVA- , LANCHE. (PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Dunedin, August 3. News was received in town last evening of a sad affair on the Kyeburu Ranges, which, it is feared, has resulted in the loss of three, if not four, lives. It appears that on Friday a young lad named Meikle, about 15 years of age, was lost on the ranges. The weather was very severe, and a search party wae at once organised. Among the search party was a brother of the lad who was lost and two others named Blanchard and Beer. They started out on Saturday morning to search for the missing lad, and were out all day. Not returning in the evening the greatest anxiety prevailed, and yesterday morning further search parties were organised, and a determined attempt made to fiud them. A cap, which was identified as belonging to one of the young men, was found on a ridge on tho ranges, and a closer search revealed the fact that the three had either fallen over the cliff, some 50ft high, or, what seems more probable, that while standing near the edge of the cliff a slip had occurred, carrying the young men with it. The three were found buried under some 15ft of snow and mullock. It is understood that the three were dead when discovered, but on this point the information received is not definite. Later. The bodies of Alphouso Beer, aged 20, Robert Blanchard, 20, and James Meikle, IS, have been discovered. Blanchard waa found embedded in 6ft or 7ft of snow, about a chain from where Beer’s body was found, while Meikle was discovered some 20 or 30 yards further up. The bedy of Thomas Meikle, aged 14, has not yet been discovered. The three first-named belonged to a Star search party of nine, and disappeared from their companions’ view by the snow giving from under them, and completely enveloping them in the avalanohe which slipped for fully 400 yards down the mountain side into a gully, and then was precipitated with awful velocity over a perpendicular cliff 50ft in depth. The bodies were discovered yesterday by a search party of 200 men from Kyeburn. Blanchard and Beer were evidently killed outright from the fall, but Meikte’s body showed no marks of injury, and it is thought he must have lived some time after reaching the bottom. Dunedin, August 4. The lifeless body of the younger Meikle was fouud yesterday. Four dogs were with him, one of them lying right across the body.