In addition to these, however, there have been disasters of the first magnitude in New Zealand waters which in their day shocked the country. The first of these, and the worst, was the wreck of the steam corvette HMS Orpheus (1,706 tons) on the Manukau Bar, Auckland, on 7 February 1863. Disaster struck in fine clear weather at a cost of 189 lives. HMS Orpheus had arrived from Sydney with stores for Her Majesty's ships on the New Zealand station, and ran ashore 2 miles from the Heads, only 50ft from deep water. Huge rollers sweeping her port broadside forced the hatchway fastenings and the ship filled with water. A strong flood tide completed the vessel's destruction and when a roll call was taken, after only partially effective rescue operations, it was found that 189 (including the captain, Commodore W. F. Burnett, C.B.) of a complement of 259 had been drowned.

The island story of New Zealand could hardly fail to include many chronicles of wreck and catastrophe at sea, but happily the catalogue of disaster is today largely a matter of fairly remote history. The first wreck, or rather, scuttling, recorded, that of the trading ship Endeavour in Facile Harbour, Dusky Sound, dates back to 1795, and a wide variety of craft were lost in the early decades of the nineteenth century before the colonisation of the country. For many years the New Zealand coastline was notorious for its hazards, and the basis of that reputation is to be found in the record of between 1,400 and 1,500 disasters of greater or less degree in the brief span of this country's history. Among early wrecks were the 470-ton barque Maria, smashed to pieces on the rocks at Cape Terawhiti in 1851, with the loss of 26 lives; the 463-ton paddle steamer City of Dunedin, lost in Cook Strait with all hands (14 passengers and a crew of 25) in 1865; the 834-ton schooner St. Vincent, totally wrecked in Palliser Bay in 1869, with 20 persons drowned; the Surat (1,000 tons), lost at the mouth of the Catlins River in Otago in 1874, without loss of life, when the intoxicated captain, at the revolver point, prevented his passengers from hailing a passing ship for aid; the 438-ton Taiaroa, which went ashore at Waipapa Point, North Canterbury, in 1886, 39 of a complement of 48 losing their lives; and the trans-Tasman ship, Tasmania, of 2,252 tons, wrecked off Mahia Peninsula, Poverty Bay, in 1897, with a death roll of 13. In later years there were the Devon (5,489 tons), ashore at Pencarrow Head, Wellington, in 1913; the 128-ton Tainui, whose cargo of petrol exploded off Shag Rock, North Canterbury, in 1919, killing all hands (eight) except the cook; the 12,160-ton Wiltshire, which met its end in 1922 on the Great Barrier Island without casualties; the 4,534-ton intercolonial steamer Manuka, which became a total loss on Long Point, South Otago, in 1929, again without loss; and the Huddart Parker Co.'s Wanganella (9,576 tons), which struck Barrett Reef while entering Wellington Harbour in 1947. The Wanganella was subsequently refloated a few hours before a terrible southerly storm struck Wellington.

Shortly after 1 p.m. on 7 February 1963 a bus descending Pilbrow Hill, in the Brynderwyn Hills, near Whangarei, failed to take the last bend before the bottom, smashed through a fence, and rolled through scrub down an almost vertical slope to the Piroa Stream 100 ft below, killing 15 of the passengers and injuring the remaining 21. Ten of those killed came from Ngati Whatua settlements in the Helensville district. All the passengers were Maoris who had attended the royal visit celebrations at Waitangi. Subsequently, the Transport Department's inquiry found that the accident was caused by the failure of the service brakes.

Another railway disaster, and in its day New Zealand's worst, occurred in the King Country on 5 July 1923. The Main Trunk express from Auckland to Wellington crashed into a huge slip at Ongarue, near Taumarunui, and was wrecked. Fourteen people were killed and 30 seriously injured. It had been an ill-fated journey from the outset. As is often the case in winter, heavy weather had been drenching most of the inland area of the North Island for days. Landslides and rail blockages had been reported from many points, and the outlook was so unpromising that the departure of the express from Auckland had been delayed for four hours. Finally it was decided that a start could be made on the 426–mile night journey. After leaving the Waikato Plains behind, the train edged its way gingerly round minor slips and obstructions, and then plunged heavily into a veritable landslide at Ongarue.

In October 1940 the Limited express, northbound from Wellington to Auckland, encountered trouble at 8.15 a.m. on the final stages of its journey when, without warning, the engine and tender jumped the rails. Fortunately the following carriages did not follow suit. In this case appearances outdid reality to an alarming degree. The permanent way was a shambles, but no deaths occurred among the full complement of passengers. Ten were seriously injured, but the only fatalities were the engine driver and fireman, who were killed when the locomotive capsized. B.J.F. and R.J.

When the Cromwell-Dunedin express was derailed on the outskirts of the tiny Central Otago township of Hyde, on the afternoon of 4 June 1943, it carried a heavy complement of passengers bound for the Winter Show Carnival in Dunedin. Wartime petrol rationing was at the time forcing traffic on to the railways. Twenty-one of those on board were killed and 47 were injured, and because the accident was proved to have been the consequence of a grave dereliction of duty on the part of the engine driver, the Government was liable for compensation claims which involved a sum in excess of £200,000. Travelling at an excessive speed, the engine jumped the rails in a deep cutting and rolled over. One carriage continued on and was smashed, and a second was telescoped against the back of the derailed engine. Four other cars were extensively damaged, only two escaping unscathed. The accident occurred in a relatively uninhabited part of Central Otago, and medical and mechanical aid was delayed for some time. Had the engine driver lost control later in the afternoon when the rougher terrain of the Taieri Gorge and its approaches had been reached, the death roll must have been very much greater. That only 21 lost their lives was due in large measure to the excellent organisation of the rescue work.

On the evening of Saturday, 11 March 1899, two excursion trains which were travelling from Ashburton to Christchurch, carrying 3,000 employees of the Christchurch Meat Co., Islington, and their families, collided at the Rakaia Railway Station. Four of the passengers were killed and 22 were injured. Describing the accident, the New Zealand Railway Review of March 1899 said that the engine of the second train crashed into the guard's van of the first, causing it to cut 14 ft into the next carriage while the third carriage mounted the platform of the second to a distance of about 8 ft. Because it was raining heavily at the time of the collision, the Commission of Inquiry reported that the enginedriver on the second train had been negligent in not observing the regulations governing an approach to a station.

In view of the many stories about high winds in the Wellington and Wairarapa districts, it is not surprising that there has been one fatal accident on the famous incline over the Rimutaka Range. On the morning of 11 September 1880 a small train left Greytown for Wellington. In order to negotiate the incline the locomotive was placed in the centre of the train, pushing two carriages and a van, and hauling two wagons of timber and a Fell van. Owing to rain and a heavy wind, progress up the incline was unusually slow and, as the train reached the sharp curve before “Siberia” tunnel, the two carriages and the van were blown off the line. Although the couplings held and the weight of the engine prevented the carriages and van from rolling into the valley below, the body of the first carriage was torn from its mounting and the passengers were thrown on to the hillside. Three children were killed and 11 adults injured in this, the only fatal accident to a passenger train on the incline. There is no foundation for the legend that a complete passenger train was blown off the incline and came to rest in the valley below “Siberia” corner.

The most tragic of all such occurrences was the death of 151 men, women, and children on Christmas Eve, 1953, when a sudden discharge of thousands of tons of water from the crater lake of Mt. Ruapehu destroyed the railway bridge at Tangiwai, 10 miles south of Ohakune, and provided a death trap for a crowded holiday night-express train on its way from Wellington to Auckland. In some instances, whole families of holiday makers, young and old, perished together in the most horrible conditions. When the lake waters found an outlet beneath the Whangaehu Glacier, they swirled tumultuously into the Whangaehu River, carrying with them ice, ash, boulders, and debris. The swift and sudden deluge, known scientifically as a lahar, hurled itself against the powerful concrete pylons of the railway bridge and swept away 154 ft of the 198 ft of decking and track. The night-express raced on to the bridge at high speed and plunged to its doom. Engine and fuel tender flew from the broken permanent way, smashed their couplings, and crashed into the opposite bank, 40 yards away. The following carriages continued on and fell 35 ft into the raging filth of the river below. Five carriages were immediately submerged and a sixth teetered on the brink until it too toppled over and was swept downstream. Only three cars remained on the rails. It was the torrent of water, ice, silt, and ash, together with the oil fuel from the crashed tender, that took the toll of life, not the impact of the crash. Those who extricated themselves from the carriages were stripped, choked, and asphyxiated by the foul flood in which they found themselves. Darkness lent added horror to the scene and greatly hampered the rescue work of railwaymen, road travellers, and Army personnel from Waiouru Military Camp, 10 miles away. The efforts of this determined band of workers were characterised by such courage and resource that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, who was in New Zealand at the time, made immediate awards of the George Medal and the British Empire Medal to mark the gallantry of four men. The freak flood subsided with uncanny swiftness and the search for the dead began in earnest. Out of 285 persons known to have been on the train only 134 survived. A total of 131 bodies were recovered and 20 other passengers have never been accounted for.

The first major fatality occurred in February 1914 when W. S. King and A.C. guides Thomson and Richmond were killed by an avalanche from the slopes of Mount Cook on the Linda Glacier. In January 1930 acting guide J. E. E. Blomfield and four women were overwhelmed by a sudden violent storm on the Tasman Glacier. The worst accident has been on Mount Egmont, which to July 1965 had claimed 33 lives. Egmont, which is an easy scramble for hundreds in summer but frequently in winter an ice climb of high technical standard, was in July 1953 the setting for a slip involving a large party. Two men and four women lost their lives.

In the last 50 years, deaths in the Mount Cook region have reached a total of 59. Of that number 19 mountaineers to date (April 1965) have died on the mountain itself.

A highly organised and efficient Search and Rescue Organisation has proved invaluable in rescuing the injured or lost and in recovery work of all kinds. It is regrettable that many of the fatalities were the result of climbers' inexperience.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.

New Zealand mountaineering, in common with that in other countries, has had its share of accident and tragedy. Local climatic hazards, variable ice conditions on the higher peaks, and a mountain river system subject to heavy flooding have taken their toll.