AMBYRM ERUPTION

Hokitika Guardian, 3 September 1929, Page 1

AMBYRM ERUPTION

STORY OF EVACUATION. MISSION STATION DESTROYED. AUCKLAND, August 31. A spectator at the disastrous eruption .on Ambrym island, New Hebrides, on June 28, Mr C. R. Stringer, of the Presbyterian Mission, is now in Auckland. Mr Stringer was returning to the island 'from a meeting of the Mission Synod wnen, from an anchorage twenty-five miles away, Ire saw the disturbance commence. It began with a fiare-up in the darkness, and then a river of J lava swept towards the sea, wiping up trees and gardens and isolated native huts, forcing the hurried evacuation of this portion of the coast, and finally demolishing two mission stations and sending up clouds of steam as the hot ro'ck met the sea. Several infirm natives who lived in the bush lost their lives, but the population round the mission* stations received warning and took to boats. Ambrym island is roughly triangular in shape, a circuit of coastline being about seventy miles. The centre of the island is an ash plain, and the habitation is generally concentrated on the three corners of the island. An eruption in 1913 caused considerable loss of Me among the native communities, and the mission station and hospital were destroyed. Mr Stringer had charge of the Presbyterian Mission at Craig Cove. A French priest also was stationed near this spot, and about five miles away at Baiap a New Zealander, Mr Taylor conducted a Seventh Day Adventist mission. . »

“ Mount Benbow was the chief offender this time,” said Mr Stringer. “The extraordinary thing is that the mountain is about eleven miles from Craig Cove, and a crater about 3000 feet deep, a mile long and three-quarters of a mile wide had to be filled up before the lava stream overflowed and made for the coast. The lava found the valleys, and in places the molten stream was half a mile wide. It reached Baiap that night, and Mr Taylor, his wife and child had abandoned their station only half an hour when it was engulfed. They spent the night in a native village.” Mr Stringer said the lava did not reach Craig Cove * until the day broke.”

Immediately the security of .thq settlement was threatened the natives launched the mission motor-boat. In Mr Stringer’s absence, James Kum, a native teacher, took charge, and 74 people were taken on the launch without undue panic. Mr Harvey, a European trader, took 63 natives on his launch, and the refugees were taken thirteen miles to Malekula, on another island. The inhabitants of this island had seen the eruption in its early stages, and a number of boats were sent to help with the evacuation. It was pitch dark and a fair sea was running, but the population of 400 or 500 was safely transferred, a few bush natives (hurrying from inland to join

in the exodus. Terrors were increased by . the opening of another volcano a

few miles from Craig Cove,’ while an eruption occurred on the beach, and less than three-quarters of a mile offshore a further upheaval occurred in the 100-fathom line. So great was the disturance at this depth that a column of water and debris was seen in the daylight to be reaching nearly 600 feet. The Presbyterian church and the residence were carried away, and seven feet of rock has been deposited where the buildings stood. The Roman Catholic buildings escaped, and the lava stream played some strange tricks, sweeping up almost to the walls of the trader’s house and the copra store without causing further damage. Yam plots and coconut palms went down before the lava, but 'the native village

was only lightly touched. Glowing ashes 'had set alight to seven or eight huts. The eruption near the water smothered a sandy stretch with a hill fifty feet in height. In the hasty departure nothing could be done to save the contents of the Presbyterian Mjs-