TRAGEDY-FOUR DROWNED.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1659, 28 January 1913, Page 6

TRAGEDY-FOUR DROWNED.

PUNT TJPSET IN CHOPPY WATER,'

(By Telfgrgphi-PrcGß Aaso'ctation.)

Chrlstohurch, January 27. A boating accident occurred at Salt* water ; Creek yesterday; four men being drowned. " .

■ .The parly was trawling near tho north bank and entered a punt lo cross to the southern 1 side. A south-west wind •' mado tho water ohoppy, There were 6even men in tho punt. A good deal of water was shipped,- and tho boat.oapsizod,'. ■Tho members of tho party were clothed, John Ashby (Sefton), who was .'wearing .waders, got nshoro, >and William Clark (Sefton) swam nshoro. Matthew Gallagher (Cliristclmrcli)' cluni? to the boat. Tho other four—l Yank Powell, Leslio Parker, Robert Rapsou (oil of Sefton), and Frederick Challis' (Christchurch)— ivero drowned. . . Powell, who- was a middle-aged man, loaves a wife find eight children j Challis a wife and a child tour months old. • ■ : ■ '■'Later. .' ' The r bodies■' of Francis Powell,: lxslio Parker, and Frederick Challis were recovered this morning at 1 a.m., when tho tido was low. Messrs. W» J, and A. M'!|lillan went out in a boat with two fishermen (Messrs. Morris and Phillips), and, dragging oyer tho sipot where the acoideiit occurred with a fishing net, brought TIP the tody of Powell ju twenty mimites. ■ Dropping the net' they brought up the bpdiea of Parker and Challis. All efforts to recover Robert Hup* son's body proved fruitless.