Transport Briefs
p. 85 · Read in the full issue
• The Cook Islands has withdrawn the Lorena from the Auckland-Raro tonga service, and put it up for sale.
One offer of $700,000 has already been received. The ship was losing $2,000-$4,000 a voyage. Now the NZ Department of Island Affairs is look ing for alternative means of shipping 1.600 tons of cargo to the Cooks. • Four men from Ponape, miss ing since March 16, were picked up by a Danish freighter 27 days later 1,000 miles from their island. They set out on a fishing trip in a 7m dory fishing boat and were found about 60 miles east of Gaferut, an uninhabited atoll in Yap district.
The men were reported to be in good condition, in spite of their ordeal. They were Kalostin Jack, Endy Edmon, Slauder Joel and Pedro Poll. 9 Madang will not get its Japan ese ship-building complex. The Minister for Lands and Environment.
Mr Kavali, said the government had rejected an application by the com pany for land for the complex. Un satisfactory aspects of the Japanese proposal involved proper training for Papua New Guineans, equity pro visions, price structure and pollution controls. The company had been asked
to modify its proposals, but had replied that it would like to withdraw the application to establish the com plex. The government, however, was still interested, and would make its own investigation, Mr Kavali said. • A military ship rescued a crew of nine from an LCU boat in diffi culties in the Marshall Islands late in April. The LCU, privately owned, was on the way to Majuro with 100 tons of explosives, to be used on channel blasting projects. The crew, in an effort to save the LCU, jetti soned some of the cargo. According to the latest report the LCU cap sized, but was still floating. • The runway at Fua’amotu air port, Nukualofa, handled 403 “inter national” flights in 1973—250 by Air Pacific from Fiji and 153 by Poly nesian Airlines from Western Samoa.
Air traffic to Tonga in 1973 totalled 9,510 passengers, of whom 6,356 were tourists and 3,154 Tongan nationals. Air Pacific carried most Tongan passengers, who were prob ably flying through Fiji from Aust ralia and New Zealand. On October 2, 1973, the all-weather paved run way at Fua’amotu airport was opened. This ensures that flights will no longer be cancelled because of the state of the runway. Formerly, a day or two of rain closed the air port.