ERUPTION ON ISLAND

Chronicle (Levin), 23 September 1946, Page 5

ERUPTION ON ISLAND

-Press Association

Crater Opened In Village AIR OBSERVERS STORY

By Telegraph-

AUCKLAND, Sept. 22. The first observer of the eruption on Niuafoou or Tin Can Island, to reach New Zealand, J\tr. E. E." Katterns, an Auckland baker who was a passenger on the Royal New Zealand Air Force Dakota whieh circled the steaming island while fiying from Samoa to Fiji last Thursday, arrived in Auckland on Saturday.Niuafoou had by no means been devastated as earlier reports suggested and the eruption was eonfined to only one rather small section of the island, said i\Ir. Katterns. Volcanic activity had almost ceased on Thursday and the island was then steaming quietly. Leaving Faleolo at J O o'clock 011 Thursday morning, the Dakota whieh was fiying the fortnightly schedule from Samoa to New Zea land, arrived over Niuafoou about midday and while Ihe pilot circled low for photographs to be taken, Mr. Katterns had an excellent view of the seene of the eruption. They flcw within a few hundred feet of the deserted and hall burnt out village of Angaha. A big crater whieh had opened up in the middle of the village, was still smoking. "The first thing we notieed as we approached the island, was a cloud of steam rising from the shore near Angaha," said Mr. Katterns. "When we got nearer we could see the steam eame from a huge mass of hot lava whieh had poured down the slope into the sea. The lava was a blaek looking mass and most oi' it appeared to have come from the main crater in the village. Only about a mile of the coast of the island around the village had been affected by the disturbance and the rest of the island was untouched and still covered with thiek vegetation," Mr. Katterns said. There was only one crater of any size and it had broken out elose to what looked like a radio station, destroying half the village whieh lay between it and the sea. On the seaward side of the crater from whieh the smoke continued to curl, everything had been overwhelmed. The eruption had thrown out a huge volume of lava whieh now completelj7 covered all buildings and plautations in a great volcanic flow whieh fanned out toward the sea. The base of the flow, whieh was steaming where it entered the water, was about half a mile long and many feet deep. It must have eruptcd with tremendous violenee for trees and flimsy native dwellings with thatched roofs on the slopes of the island above-the crater, had been withered and blaekened hy tlie blast. Mr. Katterns said one quite substantial building had been completely shored off at floor level and only the concrete foundations remained. Other buildings had apparently been set on fire hy the heat ;of the eruption and some were burjed. in . blaek piud. A1--thougll a , | aii "pjai^ pf age aboye.vTFe'Craterb'was '-stilL standipgv the hW^es Fad been evacuated and not a person could be seen from the air. / Mr. Katterns said the Dakota flew over several villages on another seetion of the island whieh had escaped eruption. Although Niuafoou had a population of about 1500 he saw no more than half a dozen natives and none waved or signalled the aeroplane. The island looked a diffieult plaee 011 whieh to land from a boat, previous lava flows having formed a steep roeky beaehless shelf round the edge.