SYDNEY TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 4 November 1927, Page 3

SYDNEY TRAGEDY

ABOARD THE TAHITI. (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.) (Received this day at 10.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, Nov. 4. Only n few passengers aboard the Tahiti knew anything about the collision till it was practically over. All had heard the shrill hurst from the Tahiti’s siren, that immediately preceded the crash. They felt little more than a hump as the giant mail steamer crashed through the frail timbers of the ferry, and it was not till they heard the screams that they realised something serious had occurred. Then there was a rush for the upper decks.

One passenger said—“ Looking over the side I could see the ferry slowly turning over and then split into halves. One piece was swept by where I was standing and it was terrible to hear the women and children screaming.” Another passenger was watching from the how of the vessel, when suddenly ho became aware that a second vessel was immediately ahead. He could see that nothing hut a miracle could avert a crash, hut he was not prepared for the full horror of what was to follow. In a moment after the crash one side of the ferry had disappeared from view. The other immediately became alive with scrambling, terrified people, some clinging frantically to the stanchions, rails or anything that would afford support, clambering hopelessly upwards oil the slowly submerging side of the wreck, hut it was those who were in the lower cabins who were truly in desperate straits, realising that unless they could fight free through the windows or gangway openings before the vessel became submerged that they must inevitably polish. They struggled madly to escape. Some achieved their object, even after the vessel sank, hut it is feared many were trapped. A search of the debris \\ as carried out by means of seaioliligbts till the hour when it was abandoned.

SOME OF THE MISSING

SYDNEY, Nov. 4

The missing in the harbour disaster are: Surgeon Commander AY. Pardiee. Dr C. AY. Reid (chief quarantine officer), Dr R. Lee Brown, R. AVright, Alfred Barker. Charles Garrett, Bernard Landers, C. AA'oife, C. Bloom, Mr* John Corby and her daughter, Captain E. AYilliams, John Bagg, a girl named AVright and twelve naval ratings. The critically injured are Marie Aria Enid Stownn and a child unidentified.

OTHER ACCOUNTS.. SYDNEY. Nov. 4

Renlon, one of the dead, was Chief Petty Officer of the warship Penguin. Eye-witnesses describe the suddenness of the calamity. One states all was over in twenty seconds. According to their testimony, the two vessels were travelling in the same direction. The ferryboat was somewhat ahead and appeared to swing over. .Some of those caught inside the saloon broke the windows and managed to get free, while the Oraycliffe was sinking. A passenger aboard the Tahiti savfrom the time'wo hit. the ferry till she sank was less than a minute. Those aboard the ferry had no time to do anything. The screaming of the women and children was terrible, but it is wonderful how everyone tried to help eaeli other.

Tahiti passengers threw over life belts and rafts.