Kōrero: Floods

No. 4 camp after the flood

A devastated landscape with broken buildings and river debris.

This photograph shows the camp the day after the flood. In the early morning of 19 February 1938, a flash flood raced down the Kōpuawhara Stream. A wall of water, estimated at 5 metres high, washed all the huts away and left the ground covered with large boulders. Twenty-one people were killed here, while another person drowned in the Maraetaha Stream further north as a result of another flood caused by the same weather system.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library, C. A. Jeffery Collection
Reference: 1/2-60159; F

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Te tuhi tohutoro mō tēnei whārangi:

Eileen McSaveney, 'Floods - The Kōpuawhara flash flood, 1938', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/mi/photograph/4884/no-4-camp-after-the-flood (accessed 24 April 2024)

He kōrero nā Eileen McSaveney, i tāngia i te 12 Jun 2006, reviewed & revised 1 Feb 2024