Sound clip: radio announcements

Hear Prime Minister Sidney Holland's Christmas Day announcement about the Tangiwai disaster. Holland spoke by phone from Waiouru Military Camp to Wellington, where the recording was made to disc for later broadcast. The occasional humming noise is probably from other telephone traffic causing the Holland signal to 'drop off' the line.

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Transcript

[some words are hard to decipher]

I regret the delay to the commencement of this broadcast due to the improvisation of broadcasting arrangements here at Waiouru [Military?] Camp under very difficult circumstances.

It is with profound regret that I have to announce that a most serious railway accident has occurred to the 3pm express travelling from Wellington to Auckland. The disaster occurred at 10.21pm last night, ¾ of a mile north of Tangiwai - T A N G I W A I - which is seven miles north of Waiouru. The train, which was on time at Waiouru, and also at Tangiwai, reached the railway bridge crossing, the Whangaehu River - W H A N G A E H U - Whangaehu River, sometimes called the Sulphur Stream.

So far as can be ascertained, an enormous volume of water swept [down the river?]. The cause of the tremendous and sudden flood is not known, but it apparently hit the bridge immediately before the train reached the spot. It appears that immediately prior to the accident, two huge concrete piers had been washed out and collapsed with the weight of the engine. The engine had almost crossed the bridge, but it had rolled back into the river. The six following carriages, which were on the bridge, fell into the river as the bridge collapsed. The carriages and the unfortunate occupants of the five front carriages were swept down [the river?]. Rescue and organisation work [?] of the disaster has been proceeding at high pressure ever since [its discovery?] and large numbers of helpers are out at the present time.

I am speaking from Waiouru Camp after spending some time at the scene of the accident. A headquarters organisation has been set up at Waiouru Military Camp to deal with the situation. I will endeavour to give as much information as possible, and further details will be supplied from time to time as they are available. Radio will be used for this purpose, as newspapers are not published today.

I deeply regret to say that this is the most disastrous railway accident in New Zealand's history and unfortunately it has been attended by appalling loss of life. When the express left Taihape, it carried 275 passengers. At Waiouru, eight passengers left the train. Thus at the time of the disaster, there were 267 passengers. Of this number, only 103 have so far been accounted for. And these include 56 passengers who remained in that part of the train that was not involved [in the accident?].

Twelve people are in the Raetihi hospital, but I am not at the moment able to state their condition, but will give this information when it is available. There are 21 persons in hospital at Waiouru Military Camp, these people were in the last carriage to fall into the river and all had a miraculous escape. None of these people is seriously hurt. There were 22 passengers in that carriage, and all but one were rescued. Fourteen people are being cared for by local [?families] in the Karioi district - K A R I O I. Thirteen bodies have so far been recovered. This leaves 151 persons so far unaccounted for and for whom large search parties are now operating over many miles of the river. Fifty six of the persons accounted for returned to Marton by train, and two returned to Taihape by private car.

It would be impossible to describe the scene in words. The enormous concrete piles on which the bridge rested [are gone?] and so great was the force of the flood waters that these huge piers were washed far down stream. The chassis of one of the large railway carriages is now several miles down stream. Some bodies have been recovered 15 miles from the scene of the disaster. I gravely fear that there is little hope of further persons being rescued alive. And it therefore appears that the death roll be 164, of whom 13 have already been recovered.

The explanation of the difficulty in recovering bodies is that a wall of water about 20 feet high swept down the river. Enormous quantities of silt and rock have been swept down and it is feared that many bodies have thus been buried. Farmers and others with property on the banks of this river as far as the sea, are asked to keep a close watch and to send reports to the nearest police station.

The organisation that has been set up at Waiouru Military Camp includes the police, railways, works, army, navy and many others. It has been divided into various aspects to be dealt with. I cannot too highly praise the work of hundreds, who have worked without rest throughout the night, and up to the present time. Mr Kearins, MP for the district, met me on my arrival from Auckland this morning and he is helping in dealing with the situation.

Would the public please understand that this is merely an interim report, prepared under difficult circumstances, but further information will be broadcast later on today. The Relief Organisation Committee will meet at Waiouru again at 4pm this afternoon. In the meantime, lists of names are being prepared and checked, and these will be broadcast at the earliest possible moment. It is with the deepest regret that I have to make this statement on Christmas Day, but I feel no doubt that it was my simple duty to do so. [END]

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Transcript

It's a long straight stretch of railway, with the main highway close by. Motorists who have travelled through this part of the country know that as they pass the railway station at Tangiwai - that is seven miles to the south of Waiouru - there's a river - the Whangaehu River - about a quarter of a mile, maybe half a mile past the railway station, past the crossing. This was the scene of the disaster. The railway line itself is a long, straight stretch, and on both sides of the railway bridge are elbows in the river - on the east side of the bridge.

At this moment the mud and the slush which is left, and all the silt, indicates that the pressure of water from the mountainous areas in the east - Ruapehu is to the east - this flood water, the pressure of water which came from the cloud burst south of Ruapehu, must have struck the railway embankment, and the only outlet, under terrific pressure, was under the bridge.

And the bridge was only 20 or 30 feet high, about 90 feet long. It had about half a dozen pylons - I can only see three, four, one of them tumbled on the northern end, the other two, one of them about 40 feet from its previous position with the dirty, grey water swirling over it, and the other fully 40 yards away. And all that is left of this bridge is 20 or 30 feet on the southern end.

The pressure of water must have swept those two massive concrete pylons down the stream. The parallel road bridge, further away - well its about 100 yards further away was also wrecked, and all the low-lying area is covered with mud and silt, showing the severity of the flood which was the cause of the disaster. [END]

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Transcript

Mr Anderson: Well I was sort of brought up with a round turn shall I say by the sudden jolting of the carriage as if something was ... suddenly well ... a kind of grating noise as if something was stopping us or we were making a sudden stop of some sort. I was rather curious to find out what it was and I could see at the front of our carriage what appeared to be a cloud of steam or white cloud of some sort. That seemed strange, we were quite a long way back in the train, I couldn't work that one out at all. Well I had a nasty feeling then that there seemed to be nothing else in front of us. Our carriage just seemed to be almost marooned shall we say. Nothing on either side, except water, I could hear the rushing, there was a tremendous rushing of water and there was quite a lashing of foam and you could hear it. It was rather frightening and I had a nasty feeling then that we were sort of on some sort of bridge or other, just left to it.

Interviewer : And when you came to, how did you get out? Do you remember getting out of the carriage?

Mr Anderson: Well I don't ... we didn't really get out at all. Somebody sort of said to us - after what appeared to me to be quite a few seconds pause - we better get out of this, but he was sort of taking it quietly, we better get out of this carriage. Very shortly after that I sort of reached for my raincoat and put it on and my wife's coat, I don't know whether we could have got that on or not, but I had it, and the next thing we felt a sort of lurching, sort of a sway, that one put most of us all out of balance, then there was a kind of downward kind of a plunge of some sort, and it seemed as if we sort of floated for quite a bit.

Interviewer: What carriage were you in?

Mr Anderson : Carriage Z actually

Interviewer: That was the one that er, that went over last or first was it?

Mr Anderson: It was the first carriage, it seemed to be the only carriage I could see left on the bridge, I wondered what happened to the rest of it. As I said before, I had the uncanny feeling that something had disappeared in front of us. [END]

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Transcript

Witness: I went down just out of curiosity because the river was in flood. I took the policeman with me and my two daughter-in-laws, and we got down there and I could see the lights of the express - the rear lights.

Interviewer: What had led you to believe the river might be in flood?

Witness: Oh it was the roar

Interviewer: How long had you heard the roar?

Witness: Well the roar had been going on for an hour, I believe. I didn't hear it an hour before, but my son had done, and I thought that it might have been the wind in the trees. Out of curiosity I went down to the river to see it in flood. And when I got down there I see the three lights of the rear of the express, and I thought, oh the bridge can't be safe, they must have stopped...that was the tail end of the express.

Of course when I got down the bridge had gone, and the traffic bridge had gone. Constable Smith said to me 'for goodness sake you must go back to the Waiouru Camp and get the military to send out everything that they've got.' I come back to the military camp and they had already got a message, and told me that everything was going down, so I went immediately back again to see what I could do. When I got back there everything was in darkness and they couldn't do very much, so I come back again to see if they had a couple of searchlights.

Interviewer: Why couldn't they do much, was the river too high?

Witness: The river was too high yes.

Interviewer: How high would you say it was?

Witness: Oh well when I saw it it would be quite a number of feet above normal .... about 20 feet. It was a raging torrent.

Interviewer: Was it over the carriages completely?

Witness: Completely over the carriages.

Interviewer: An how quickly did it subside?

Witness: Oh it went down quite quickly, within an hour or two.

Interviewer: Did you see anything of the passengers being rescued at all?

Witness: None of those that were in the carriages, only those that were in the rear carriages were taken out. They were all put in the ambulance and brought up to Waiouru. There were quite a number of passengers there that were on the rear of the train going to Ohakune, that were worrying about their parents meeting them and not knowing where they were. So I brought some of them up to Waiouru and they rang up and got through to Ohakune...

Interviewer: Were the passengers able to get out of the carriages in the river, any of them at all?

Witness: There was a young man, Cyril Ellis, I believe, he was the first one down there and when he found that the bridge had gone, he rushed up on to the line with his torch and waved it. Evidently the engine drivers didn't notice.

Interviewer: It would be pretty hard on a dark night?

Witness: They would most likely be having, perhaps their supper or something, travelling down there at a great speed.

Interviewer: It's a long straight run isn't it?

Witness: A long straight run yes, and they evidently didn't notice his light. But when the train - after the crash - he mounted the train I believe, rushed into a carriage and the guard told him not to panic. And he no sooner got those words out than the coupling broke and down went the carriage. Well he managed to hang on somehow or another and he also saved two - several other passengers...the only reason that he saved them is having the torch with him, otherwise he could never have seen them.

Interviewer: Have you ever....

Witness: He's a young man out of the Post Office in Taihape

Interviewer: Have you ever seen this river behave like this before?

Witness: I've seen it, oh what, 1922, '23 it come up very high one time. It was just porridge....

Interviewer And these carriages when they were swept away, were they swept away at the one time, like just in one swoop, or were they gradually washed over and over down the line?

Witness: Well I didn't see them, it was too dark, too dark. But to look at the distance the carriages were away from the smash, it must have been a huge body of water that came down..

[END]