THE WHENUAKURA BRIDGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 January 1922, Page 7

THE WHENUAKURA BRIDGE.

EVIDENCES OF A CLOUD-BURST. There is now very little doubt but that the damage to the Whenuakura railway bridge was caused by a cloudburst, that must have occurred somewhere in the Omona district, as a tremendous volume of water came down the river. 'Some idea of its magnitude can be gauged from the fact that measurements taken by' the county engineer go to show that the river rose 20 feet—the highest ever known. It is surmised that the water brought down a large quantity of timber, piled against the railway bridge, forming a dam, which, as the water rose, caused the piles to be lifted bodily out of the bed of the river, the dam then breaking away, the timber and the bridge piles being carried out to sea. \ This is ‘borne out by the fact that some of the piles were discovered intact on the Patea beach, where they had been washed up (says the Press). The paddocks adjoining the Whefiuakura River contained quantities of eels, some of them of enormous size. These, and other fish which had been choked by the large amount of silt in the river, were left high and dry in the paddocks when the water had subsided.

A Patea resident, who has spent forty years in the district, says he has never seen-so much silt brought down the river at one time. The enormous quantity of silt furnishes further evidence that there must have been a cloud-burst to have washed it into the river and brought it down in such quantities as to choke practically all the fish in the river, including the eels and flounders, that are supposed to live in the mud.

Further evidence of the cloud-burst is afforded by the fact that the Omahina river, which is not far from the Whenuakura, scarcely rose at all last week. The cloud-burst must, therefore, have been at some spot in the Omona district, as the watersheds of the Patea and Whenuakura rivers adjoin one another in this locality.