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Flooded Rewa Brings
Driftwood And Soil
From Our Own Correspondent SUVA, July 15.
FOLLOWING a Suva dry-season week-end, in which 11 inches of rainfall was measured in 24 hours, heavy flooding took place in the Rewa River and its tributaries early in July.
On the morning of July 7, when the TEAL flight was due to leave Auckland for Lauthala Bay, the bay was a mass of floating logs, drift wood and debris of all kinds —an obvious danger to a flying-boat. As a result, the Solent, which had a full load of holiday-makers bound for Papeete Bastille celebrations, was delayed 24 hours.
Just how many hundreds of tons of rich, brown Viti Levu soil went swirling seaward from the Rewa during the first week in July would be interesting to discover. It was an instructive demonstration of how serious is the erosion problem in Fiji.
Aircraft pilots tell of a broad, clearly defined, brown band of water from the Rewa mouth, which extends south-east towards Tonga for 150 miles or more when the big river is in flood.