DAM BURSTS IN TASMANIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 630, 5 April 1929, Page 9

DAM BURSTS IN TASMANIA

Seven Missing: Enormous Damage Done WALL OF WATER SWEEPS VALLEY (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) 9-53 a.m. HOBART, To-day. f|NE of the worst disasters of recent years in Tasmania Vf occurred when the Cascade Dam, 'containing 750,000,000 gallons of water, burst under the pressure of excessive rains. An immense wall of water rushed down the valley. Several houses were washed away and seven persons are missing. The Briseis Tin Mine offices, electrical plant and workings were flooded. The low-lying parts of the township are under water and enormous damage has been done. The dam is about four miles from Derby.

Some idea nr the immense volume of water released liy the bursting- or the Cascade Dam may be gained from the tin- fact ils capacitv was more than half as much again as that of any one of the three dams in the Waitakeres. The dai l' held 7 30,000,000 gallons. Auckland’s biggest, Niliotupu, bolds gallons, the Waitakere dam, 430,000,000 gallons, and the Upper Huia (tarn, when completed, will have a capacity of 300,000,000 gallons. Derby, where the disaster occurred, is a tin-mining town Derby, where the disaster occurred, is one of several small towns in the centre of an extensive alluvial tin-mining district on the north-eastern coast of Tasmania. Unlike the Auckland reservoirs, the cascade was not used only to supply the district with water for domes tic use. Its great pressure was utilised in sluicing out the earth to obtain tin.