GREAT FLOOD AT GABRIEL'S GULLY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 47, 9 January 1862, Page 2

GREAT FLOOD AT GABRIEL'S GULLY.

ONE MAN DROWNED.

On Saturday night last there was a tremondious flood at Gabriel's Gully. It had been raining hard almost all the week, but on Saturday evening, about six o'clock, the rain began to pour down in torrents, and continued without intermission throughout the night. In the morning a fearful scene presented itself; the water by that time a roaring flood, sweeping everything before it, —pumps, long toms, sluice boxes, cradles, and all moveable articles being carried away by the stream, which rose to a great height, submerging most of the workings and doing an immense amount of damage to the claims. At the ' Junction,' the water rose to such a height as to nearly cover the tents, and people wishing to cross the bridge had to wade in water up to the armpits. Diggers were to be seen standing in water up to their waists, handing out their bedding and throwing it across the ridge poles of their tents, to save it from being washed away altogether. Everywhere the greatest confusion and distress prevailed; the misery, danger, and discomfort being aggravated by the knowledge that the flood, in carrying away tools, and damaging shafts, had done infinitely more mischief than what was apparent to the casual observer. In tbe course of Sunday the water abated considerably, but all day the stream continued to flow with great violence. The loss of property by this flood must have been very considerable, and the danger to life was by no means small; but in only one instance that we yet know of, did fatal consequences ensue. On the Sunday morning the body of a man was found drowned in the creek, and it was at first supposed that he had beeu washed out of his tent by the torrent during the night, when the flood was at its greatest height. It, however, afterwards transpired that the unfortunate man had got frightened and run out of the tent, and that in the darkness:and the confusion of his fear, he had got into the water instead of away from it. His fright and confusion were, in some degree accounted for by the fact that he was a stranger to the locality, having only arrived on the diggings with his mates on the Saturday.