STATE OF EMERGENCY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 March 1941, Page 6

STATE OF EMERGENCY

AT HANMER SPRINGS ELECTRIC POWER & WATER , CUT OFF. HOSPITALS IN DIFFICULTIES. ißy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright > CHRISTCHURCH. This Day. Living under the state of emergency proclaimed by the local Emergency Precautions Scheme Committee. Hanmer Springs is without electric power or water supply. The most serious consequences of the breakdowns have been felt by the military and civil hospitals at Hamner. A makeshift water supply has been organised by using a trailer pump borrowed from the Forestry Department to take water from a creek. The water is boiled in big coppers for use in the hospitals. Without electricity, all the hospitals' specialised plant is out of operation and emergency measures have had to be taken. There is a standby plant in the township, but it generates direct current and is of no use to the hospitals. The damage to the water supply pipe line at Kaikoura is now known to be much more serious than was at first believed. Six or seven chains of the sixmilc pipe line have disappeared, some, of the pipes being buried under twelve or fifteen feet of shingle. The whole face of the country round the headworks of the supply has been changed, with huge slips.