ISLAND BLOWN UP

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 706, 4 July 1929, Page 9

ISLAND BLOWN UP

VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN PACIFIC DESTRUCTION OF MISSIONS (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) SYDNEY, Wednesday. Advices received in Sydney state that a volcanic eruption occurred on Friday night on Ambrym Island, New Hebrides. The island was blown up. Mission stations at Craig Cove and Baiap were completely destroyed. A Seventh Day Adventist missioner, Mr. Taylor, of New Zealand, and his wife and baby are safe at Acre station. Ambrym is one of the larger islands of the Hebrides group. It is about sixty miles in circumference. The Presbyterian Mission at Craig Cove is really a New Zealand station worked in conjunction with the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. There were about ten white people at the island mission station at the time of the eruption. The volcano had been unnaturally quiet for a long time past. The last eruption resulted in many natives being killed. A radiogram has been received by the Rev. W. Mawson, the Presbyterian Foreign Missions secretary, reporting that the volcano on Ambrym is again active and has destroyed the mission station at Craig Cove, near the western end of the island. This is the second time that such a disaster has occurred in the mission’s history on Armrym. On December 7, 1913. the mission station at Dip Point, a few miles from Craig Cove, with a fine hospital of 90 beds, was demolished by a volcano which broke out right underneath it. Dr. J. T. Bowie, now in practice in Dunedin, was the surgeon in charge, and was just able to get the patients and staff to the boats and escape in time. On this occasion the only Presbyterian missionary on the island is Mr. C. R. Stringer, of Oamaru, who w r as sent out to Ambrym by the Presbyterian Church in April, 1928. Mr Stringer sent the radiogram on July 1 from the ihter-island steamer Malinoa, and reported that all were safe. The senior missionary of the Presbyterian station, Mr. J. W. Mansfield, is at present in Sydney recuperating after a severe attack of illness. There were also a Seventh Day Adventist missionary, Mr. Taylor, and several traders on the island.

ANGLICAN AID AVAILABLE The chairman of the Melanesian Mission Board (Anglican) stated this morning that the board would be glad to give any assistance it can in connection with the eruption on Ambrym Island and the demolition of the Presbyterian mission station there. The board’s steamer Southern Cross cleared Vila, New Hebrides, on June 25 or 26, and made north for the Santa Cruz and Solomon Islands. She will now be & long way from Ambrym Island. So far no instructions have been sent to the vessel from Auckland to return to the New Hebrides, but it is possible that she has received direct wireless requests for assistance.