THE SLIP AT PIGEON BAY.

Pahiatua Star and Eketahuna Advertiser, Volume 1, Issue 26, 3 September 1886, Page 4

THE SLIP AT PIGEON BAY.

We extract from the Dunedin Star the following account of this catastrophe : " We were working in the creek," said Mr James Hay, whom I met up to the knees in soft mud iiujierintending the work of pickingont the relics from the soil, " when I heard a most tremendous roar. We had been on the look-out for slips, and therefore were to some extent prepared. Those in the house ran for their lives, and as I went at top speed towards the house to aid I looked up. There, above me, coining down the mountain I side at railway speed, was a wall of earth i some 40ft or 60ft high, throwing up, as it j mine, high in the air, a kind of spray, j I thought at first it was an eruption. We all got out of the house and down to the bottom by the fence. As the mass 1 f earth came on it struck a very stroi g fence which we had put up above the house, breaking the 6x4 posts short off like matches. This, I think, prevented it carrying away the house. I then rushed to the house to see if all were out, when just then I saw the head of one of the children. This was a little boy about two years old, who had been into the store-room taking the sugar. I grabbed him and turned to run. As I did so I heard a second slip coming, and had hardly got away when it came with a rush and a roar, right on to the house, crushing it as one would an egg shell. So close was it behind me that I felt the spray of the earth striking me in the back ns 1 ran. The house then took fire and burned for quite two hours. The two eldest of the youngsters ran themselves, and we managed to get the rest out and away on to the bridge over the creek only just in time to see our home disapjM-ar ns if it hail never existed. The gardener had a nnrrow escane. He was in a small shanty in the garden and heard the roar. He started out, and had had hardly gone a chain before the shanty was buried under ten feet of earth. We lost nine dogs and slxiut fifty sheep. Some of the carcases of the latte> we have found in the soil. By-the-by, a most singular occurrence took place with regard to one of the d ig*. The first slip buried him completely, but after the second one I was surprised to see him join us oil tile bridge. He was so coated with the soil that until we washed him we had no idea which of the dogs it was. What was the roar like ?” says Mr Hay in answer to a question, “ Well, I can hardly say. It was a most unearthly noise, and so loud that all the people tn the hay heard it and ran out of their houses, thinking there was an eruption on the mountain and that an earthquake was about to take place. To give you an idea of the wav in which the various things in the house were scattered," continued Mr Hay, “we found my brother’s purse, containing 4.J8, down by low-water mark. This hail been placed in a draw er in one of the rooms. The heavy safe was also carried down to low water mark: and, stranger than all, we found the kitchen stove and the kettle on it near the safe."