The+Wahine+disaster

**The Wahine Disaster**

The story

The storm in Eastbourne was dreadful and horrific.

Cars were flipped. Houses roofs were ripped. A girl in her room - the roof flew off, and she died. The footage was so fuzzy and blearing from the storm, you could hardly make out the video.

**The waves were rolling the Wahine towards the rocks, which no one could see because of the storm.** Then...**CRUNCH! The rock ripped into the Wahine!** The crew told the passengers everything was getting dealt with, but they'd have to put their life jackets on - it wasn't. The Captain had lost control of the Wahine, and the ship was filling with salt water. The mechanic men had a siren go off and they had to rush down to the engine compartment. The water was up their ankles, and very soon up to their chest. Salt water was in the engine, and it was far from working. The power was going off and on, and then off again. Then a crashing wave belted the Wahine, and it lurched sideways. Now everybody was screaming. If you didn't cling on to something, you would be upside-down. Life boats were unable to let down manually, so they had to do it themselves which took 40 minutes. Some people jumped off the Wahine, and died. A woman had three boys, and when the Wahine was tipping at the Wellington Harbor, the air force girl grabbed one of her boys, and said, 'got him' and her husband had a boy, and the woman had one of the boys. As the ship tipped, she slipped, and her son fell from her, and down through the rails. A week later she was told they had found her son washed up on the reef, and he was dead. So sad. To terribly, terribly sad. (Thank you amazing air force girl, you saved a life.)  The storm was still raging. Life boats were getting filled, but when they wanted to stop filling and go, a mechanic said "No, keep filling!" One of the life boats tipped over, and other boats were going round picking people up. The ones they could pick up. They only got out there when everyone was scattered over the raging harbor. A policeman and two teenagers went down to the Eastbourne bay, and only to see hundreds of dead bodies. Nobody had looked round there. People came in and there was nobody to help them but a policeman with only a rope and a knife. A guy was coming in with a wave, and the policeman reached out and grabbed his hand, but he slipped off and back out again. The next time he came in was into jagard rocks. The policeman saw lots of cut off faces.

 People staggered into shore, while family searched for their loved ones. The only thing you could do was wander, and be happy you were alive.

 The activity

Timeline

 





 