SOUTH ISLAND FLOODS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 March 1941, Page 6

SOUTH ISLAND FLOODS

POSITION STILL SERIOUS REPORTS OF EXTENSIVE DAMAGE. STEEL BRIDGE SPANS WASHED AWAY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. This Day. After breaking its stopbanks yesterday afternoon and inundating farm lands, the Ashley River was falling this morning, though fears were expressed that if rain continued there would be a renewed flooding. The focus of the storm shifted further north, where it appeared likely that Culverden township would be flooded, with the rivers in the north and south swollen by torrential rain in the back country. Little River, too, was watching the weather with anxiety, for though Lake Forsyth is low, water was pouring off tne hills this morning and the creek running through the township was badly flooded. Communications north of Waiau were broken and rail and road services to the West Coast were stopped by slips. Damage to bridges on the South Island Main Trunk railway line in the neighbourhood of Kaikoura was reported today as the result of floods. Part of Kaikoura Township was destroyed. The approaches to Hapuka River Bridge have been washed away and with them one of the spans of the new steel railway bridge over the Clarence River. The bridge approaches have been washed away and portion of the fabric damaged. At the Kahautara River a central span. of 30ft on the new bridge has disappeared. A big slip occurred in the Hawkcswood cutting.