SERIOUS FLOODS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1981, 11 February 1892, Page 17

SERIOUS FLOODS.

LOSS OF LIFIO AT THE TAIERI. GREAT DAMAGE TO CROPS NORTH [ AND SOUTH. (From Tuesday's Daily Times.) The effect of the rain, which commenced to ' fall early on Sunday morning and continued almost without intermission, though with less I severity, throughout yesterday has been more serious than it was at first anticipated it would be. The damage that was done in town was comparatively trifling, but in the Taieri plains the loss that is consequent upon the weather is ) not merely confined to crops, which have, in many instances, been completely destroyed, for two cases of drowning have occurred. From aF parts of the province intelligence came to hand yesterday of damage caused by the floods — of the railway lines being under water and of bridges being washed away. The railway communication was thus very much interfered with, and the telegraphic communication was also interrupted, the result being that Dunedin was cut off, as it were, from the rest of the world, for neither express train was able to reach town last night and the telegraph officials were unable to despatch messages (and then only urgent ones) beyond Oamaru on the north lines yesterday. Serious as the position of matters was, it was ! not so serious as rumour made it out to be. One report which found circulation during the day was that one of the Union Company's steamers, said to be either the Wairarapa or the Rosamond, had been wrecked at Preservation Inlet, and another rumour, which gained currency, was that a man had been drowned on Saturday night in the Water of Leith. How such reports originated it is difficult to say, for ! there was no foundation for them. As to the former one, the Union Company, who would be the most likely to receive information on the matter obtained no tidings of a mishap to either of the steamers mentioned, and iv any case the Wairarapa is not due at the Bluff until to-day.