RABAUL HAVOC

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19379, 17 July 1937, Page 4

RABAUL HAVOC

NATIVES ENGULFED NUMBERED IN HUNDREDS ONLY ONE WHITE KILLED TRADING FIRM’S LOSSES “The loss of life among the natives has been terrible, according to what we have been able to learn so far, up to 800 or 900 having been engulfed by the ashes of the great eruption. The casualties were mainly confined to one district, behind the new crater, and on tiie hills where the eruption created new vents for the great explosion. We hear that 200 natives were found buried in the ruins of one church where they had sought shelter from the cataclysm.” writes Mr. Graham Mirfield. in his latest letter to his father, Mr. I. Mirfield, from me mandated territory of New Guinea. In a recent issue of the Herald, extracts from Mr. Mirlield's first letter home after the eruption aroused deep and sympathetic interest among Poverty Bay residents, to whom he - is well known as a former assistant engineer of the Gisborne Harbour Board, who some years ago accepted an appointment with the trading firm of Messrs. W. R. Carpenter, Limited, his headuarters being in Rabaul. In recent months Mr. Mirfield has taken up residence at Mioko, an island two hours’ sail from the capital of the mandated territory, and it was from that island that he saw the eruption which buried the city under a deep layer of ash and pumice, and wrought havoc along what is known as the North Coast.

Extraordinary Fortnight

His latest lctte- contains a description of a visit to the stricken city, during which he was able to organise the refloating of his schooner, the Meto. which was stranded high and dry by the tidal wave which accompanied the eruption. The impressions and reports he received during the visit make vivid reading, and illustrate the personal reactions of the officials and trading community to the extraordinary happening through which the territory has passed.

"Carpenters have been heavy losers through the eruption and tidal wave,” he writes. “They lost the slipway which I designed, for the new island and crater came up straight in front of the slip. The Durrun, their interstate steamer, was on the slip when the explosion occurred and is now buried, but can perhaps be dug out. Their other steamer, which was tied up to (he wharf at the time, broke adrift when the sea rose, and was last seen drifting towards the crater under a pall of falling ashes and pumice. She has not been seen since, and probably is completely gone. Further Carpenter Losses

“The Carpenter workshops were flooded, and many machines damaged, while the boat-shed and many small craft were thrown up on dry land by the tidal wave. Hundreds of pounds’ worth of cargo and timber went to sea when the wave lifted them off the wharves; and repairs to the business premises and bungalows alone will cost hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds.

“Poor old Bill Ellworthy, the only white man not accounted for, no doubt lies under the ashes at the old crater. He was a great chap, and liked by all; he had finished up with the electricity company, and was going back to Sydney on the next boat south. “Many houses along the harbour road to Kokopo, where the relief settlement was established, have been buried or burned down, and the road itself is finished for good, buried in some places so deep that it will never be dug out. The worst damage was done in the section alongside Vulcan Island, of course. North Coast Devastated

“During the visit to Rabaul, I went out with the director of public works to the North Coast, and it was terrible to see the plantations there. The wind carried the volcanic debris right over this part of the territory, which suffered twice as heavily as Rabaul itself. During the eruption, too, there was heavy rain on the North Coast, and cloudbursts did much to extend the damage.

"At one place called Wunatung, the foreshore has gone out at least 500yds., and it is high and dry where before the eruption one could anchor a large schooner: while in another place a .wash-out 70 to 80ft. deep, and about 100yds. wide, showed the effect of the cloudbursts. Trees, road, and everything went, hopelessly gone. “Further on we came to the plantation of Mr. Washington, which was almost completely destroyed. He had coconuts and cocoa, and the latter is finished, though the coconuts may grow again in time. When one thinks of the territory as the natural garden it was before the eruption, it is terrible to contemplate the havoc wrought since.

Harbour Like a Mud Flat

“It is strange to see ships sailing in and out of Rabaul harbour through the layer of pumice which covers all the water. The harbour looks like a mud fiat, and one ship which came in to load copra could not get within 3ft. of the wharf, owing to the solidity of the pumice layer.

“When we started to float the Meto, our schooner which was stranded high and dry in the garden of a bungalow along the waterfront, we had three days’ solid work, and the pumice was a nuisance all the time. Even when we got the ship down to the waterline, after great labour, the boys would not go underwater, as they were afraid of the pumice layer, and we had to do everything by feel, lengthening the job a lot. Yet, filthy as we all were, and unattractive as the New Guinea native can be at times, I could have kissed the lads one by one when the Meto took the water and floated, without any material damage. Hope for Garden City “We have lost little through the eruption, I am thankful to say, now that the Meto is afloat; but people who lived in Rabaul will be heavy sufferers. The reconstruction work started as soon as possible after the eruptions had subsided, and I recruited a line of 110 boys for the Government to help. The dust was terrible all through the job, arid men who went through much of it have been coughing night and day. The first job was to clean the roofs of the bungalows and shops, where the pumice and ashes were caked too hard to sweep down, and every few minutes there would be a

new cloud of dust to add to the pall hanging over the town.

“Disastrous as the past fortnight has been, however, there are gleams of hope for the people of Rabaul. Already the broken trees are beginning to sprout again, and people are going about the work of reconstruction with new hope. Many of the bungalow roofs here partially collapsed, and every gutter on every building has been broken down, but the work of cleaning up is going on, and in time Rabaul, the garden city, will reappear in all its old time beauty.”

424 NATIVES MISSING 50 BODIES RECOVERED (EW. T<4. Copyright —United Press Assn.) RABAUL, July 16. The New Guinea administration reveals that 424 natives, adults and children of both sexes, are missing since the volcanic eruption at Rabaul. It is feared that the majority are dead. About 50 bodies have already been recovered. The remainder, who are believed to have been overwhelmed, lie under the debris.