FLOODED RIVER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20440, 19 October 1934, Page 2

FLOODED RIVER.

Waimakariri Rises Five Feet. FURTHER EROSION. As the result of heavy rain in the mountains, the Waimakariri River rose sft 6in above the normal level yesterday, but began to subside again at 5.30 last evening, and was still subsiding this morning at the rate of an inch an hour. At eight o’clock this morning the river was 3ft 4in above normal at the gorge. Although the swirling water continued the erosion of the bank at the lower end of Coutts’ Island, no damage was reported to any of the River Trust’s works. Large slabs of bank continue to slide into the river where the waters rush past the paddocks at the lower end of Coutts Island and yesterday afternoon the engineer to the trust (Mr H. W. Harris) was busy with a gang of men undertaking measures of protection by means of scrub mattresses. Large piles of scrub had been assembled and the material was wired together in numerous bundles, which were placed along the foot of the miniature cliff that has been formed by the erosion. The bundles were weighed down with stones to form a series of mattresses, which it was considered would retard the erosion considerably. The river has been in flood a number of times this year, leading to a substantial amount of erosion in the paddocks just above Wright’s cut, and yesterday it was seen that well over a yard all along a fairly • lengthy front had disappeared in the past month.