DISASTER AT GREYMOUTH.

Western Star, 10 February 1922, Page 3

DISASTER AT GREYMOUTH.

SIN BATHERS DROWNED

surfers caught in treacherous CURRENTS.

.MANY RESCUED EXHAUSTED!.

GREYMOUTH, Feb. 8. When at an early hour yesterday a train load of people filling, three carriages and fourteen waggons left Recfton their high -spirits were unclouded by apprehensions that fate’s inscrutable decree had deistined the day to close for thetn, with a terribletragedy. They rasortcc’l to the beach near the tip-head, where hundreds went bathing. There ®ecms to have been nobody in attendance to warn the visitors of dangerous whirls and back currents that come and go suddenly at times in the vicinity of the rocks leading to the tip-head, About 1.30 a boy raised! an. alarm that the current was drowning him. Jinny others were soon in the same difficulty, being only up to their waists in some eases, but steadily forced seaward. The men from) the shore rushed in, resbuingd a number.

Signalman Reeve® dived with a board from the tip, and, aided by oilier men who came in a boat to the breakers from the. river, got . Miss Doris Rivers a®here with piother boat.

The first rescue boat was swamped, and one of the four men in it, and Arthur Tim telling®, of Greymouth, was drowned. Miss Ethel Raver® was also in the current, but was rescued, as also were eleven other®,' all mon and boys.

However, five could not be 'accounted 1 for, they having been carried far out and drowned. One “man, indeed, tried 'to ®wim round the tip into the river, and was quickly drowned!.

At one- time fourteen were in difficulties, while four ,more lay on the beach exhausted, having just been able to get ashore. There were no l life-saving appliance® whatever on the beach, the life line apparatus having, been stolen some time ago. Hence, -apart from . swimmers who risked their lives ;in entering the treacherous current, the only hope was to secure boats.

Half a mile out a fishing boat was anchored, hut like other boats /tjia't came later, it- dared not come into the breakers. i

Several rescuers were exhausted!, namely, Skon, Trouland, Beale, Nelson, McG/ee and Hunt. They . battled for half an hour.

Strangers not knowing the beach had little chance once they got out far.

The missing 1 are:

Leslie o’Donpell, single, j 22, of ’ Cronadum. \ \ Robert Duffy, 30, single, Reefton. George Wilson, 18, Reefton. Frank Hart, 22 railwayman, Reefton. Arthur Hutchings, 40, single, Greymouth. Harry Evan®, 55, married wife and six children, Reefton.

Five of the victims thus hailed! from the Reefton district. None of the bodies has yet been recovered. .