Two days before this photograph was taken, a camp of over 30 buildings occupied this site for workers building the Wairoa–Gisborne railway. In the early morning of 19 February 1938, torrential rain sent a 5-metre wall of water down the Kopuawhara Stream. The camp was swept away, and 21 people drowned. Another man also drowned on 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.
Tāpiritia te tākupu hou