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A flash flood on the Waiau Stream at Kopuawhara in New Zealand on 19 February 1938 destroyed a railway construction workers camp killing 20 men and one woman, Martha Quinn.21 People drowned after cloudburst at Kapoawhara
NZ History Net, retrieved 24 September 2015
Flash flood takes workers as they sleep
Matthew Gray, Stuff.co.nz, 11 June 2013 - retrieved 24 September 2015


Waiau Stream Viaduct

During the construction of the Napier-Gisborne Railway line a workers camp (Camp no. 4) had been established on the banks of the Waiau Stream (also known as Kopuawhara Stream) in the Kopuawhara Valley at Kaiangapiri near Mahia. Houses had been built for married men on higher ground and the 47 single men's huts and cookhouse were built lower down closer to the stream.


Flash flood

The Waiau Stream had been at flood level on 19 February when a high wall of water caused by a cloudburst surged down the stream hitting the camp at 3:00 am. A workman saw the flood waters pouring into the camp site and attempted to raise the alarm before being swept away. Those who did wake attempted to take refuge on the roofs of their huts but most of the huts were destroyed by the floodwater. Those who climbed onto the roof of the cookhouse survived even though it partially collapsed. About 11 men took refuge in one of the work trucks but the waters overturned it and they were swept away. One bonnet of a vehicle was eventually found downstream.The Kōpuawhara flash flood, 1938
Te Ara, retrieved 24 September 2015
No. 2 camp was about further downstream where 47 more workers were staying. Fortunately the alarm was raised early enough for them to reach higher ground. The only other casualty in the area was a man at Boyd's Camp by the Maraetaha Stream at the Gisborne end of the railway line. The rain gauges in the Kopuawhara area had registered 8 inches of rain the day before the disaster and 20 inches within 10 hours prior to the flash flood. The flow in the Waiau stream was calculated as having reached 33,900 cusecs. A fortnight later the stream had a flow of 22 cusecs. This event exceeded the 150 year rainfall return period.


Inquest

An inquest was held into the disaster. At the inquest John Victor Haskell, a railways construction engineer said he had selected the camp site after a years observation and on site inspections. He had found that there was no evidence of flood waters ever being less than 6 feet below the lowest areas of the site. Onslow Garth Thornton, District Engineer of the Public Works Department told the inquest that the normal flow for the stream was 27 cusecs and the stream channel had a capacity of 13,728 cusecs. The catchment area for the stream was 12.64 square miles. At a one-foot flood level it would have a flow of 16,932 cusecs. He described the flow of the flash flood as unprecedented and well beyond the worst he had seen in the area even at times with heavier rainfall.


Aftermath

After an extensive search, only two bodies remained missing, Ivan Martinac and Roderick Douglas Neish. Compensation was paid by the Government to the families of those who lost their lives.Kopuawhara victims
New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23012, 13 April 1938, Page 14, retrieved 25 September 2015
A mass grave for 11 of those killed is in the
Wairoa Wairoa is a town and territorial authority district in New Zealand's North Island. The town is the northernmost in the Hawke's Bay region, and is located on the northern shore of Hawke Bay at the mouth of the Wairoa River and to the west of ...
cemetery, with the remaining workers being buried in their respective home towns.


Monument

In 1942, a monument to the flood victims was put up on the high ground above the river.


References


External links


Before and after photograph in the 1961 Photonews
{{Wairoa District 1938 Kopuawhara History of the Hawke's Bay Region 1930s floods in Oceania 1930s floods 1938 natural disasters February 1938 events Māhia Peninsula Floods in New Zealand 1938 disasters in New Zealand