Canvastown residents stranded after heavy rain causes Wakamarina River to burst its banks

Tuesday, 15 November 2016

The view from Carleen Shallcrass' house in Canvastown.

Residents of a historic Marlborough gold mining town have gone through an earthquake and now their homes are surrounded by water.

Following heavy rain overnight Monday, the Wakamarina River burst its banks, sending flood waters spilling over roads and surrounding houses in Canvastown.

The small settlement, named after the tent city that sprung up there following the discovery of gold, is halfway between Blenheim and Nelson on State Highway 6.

The State Highway 6 bridge over the Wakamarina River.

Resident Carleen Shallcrass said her home, near the river on Wakamarina Rd, was completely surrounded by water and the road out of town was inaccessible.

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'We're completely surrounded by water, the only place that isn't underwater is our house and a couple patches of the paddock that are a bit higher - we're looking at an ocean,' she said.

'I'm not too concerned because it happens now and then, this is probably the third or fourth time I've woken up and there's been water everywhere.'

The last time there was serious flooding in Canvastown was 2010, but there was no preceding earthquake which Shallcrass said was a spate of bad luck.

'What's next, are we going to have some kind of bush fire, or another earthquake?' she said.

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A release from Marlborough Civil Defence said the Pelorus River area, which the Wakamarina River feeds into, received 112 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours to 8am on Tuesday morning.

Because the Pelorus River fed into the Marlborough Sounds, Shallcrass said she and her family were waiting for high tide to see if the water rose anymore, however this looked unlikely as the rain had eased off.

Residents were not able to drive out of the Wakamarina Valley because the road was underwater, so Shallcrass said they were sitting tight waiting for it to recede.

'We didn't get evacuated last time, and we can always just go up into the roof and wait for someone to get us,' she said.

'We're prepared because it's happened a few times before.'

Marlborough Kaikoura Rural Fire Authority principal rural fire officer Richard McNamara said three unimogs from Base Woodbourne were being sent to Canvastown to provide sandbags.

He did not anticipate evacuating homes because the rain was easing off so the water level was unlikely to rise much more.

However, they were preparing to airlift three people out from the Waikakaho Valley, where the road had been blocked by slips, McNamara said.

A welfare centre was open at the Te Hora marae in Canvastown, he said.