Tangiwai: Weeping Waters speech

INFORMATIVE SPEECH WORKSHEET

NAME: Samantha

SPEECH TITLE: Tangiwai: Weeping Waters

EXCITE

1. Kia’ora! Show of hands who remembers what it means from my last speech?
It means hello in Maori! Anyway I am honored to be able to speak to you today about the topic I chose.

2. Tangiwai in Maori actually means Weeping Waters and to say if lived up to its name is an understatement!

(SLIDE 1)

LAUNCH

1. Today I am going to share with you about the world’s 8th largest rail disaster the occurred in New Zealand in 1953.

2. I first heard about this disaster while in Geography and it’s something I think most schools teach their students in New Zealand if they are taking a class like that.

3. I will be taking you back to 1953 to inform you of what happened at Tangiwai and why it was the world’s 8th largest railway disaster.

(SLIDE 2)


RELATE

I believe that it’s important to learn about major events in history that have affected countries that you may not have learned about in high school. I wanted to share something from New Zealand’s history with you all today because I personally think it’s interesting and hope you will to.

INFORM

• 1953 was a big year for New Zealand. It was the year that Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest (he’s the guy I chose for my tribute speech),

(SLIDE 3)


Queen Elizabeth II visited NZ with her husband Prince Philip on Dec 23. It was also the year that NZ experienced her worst rail disaster.

(SLIDE 4)

• This accident was caused by a lahar that came from the crater lake at Mt Ruapehu in the Central North Island., which by Geological definition is:
“A flow of pyroclastic material mixed with water. A lahar is often produced when a snow-capped volcano erupts and hot pyroclastics melt a large amount of snow or ice.”

(SLIDE 5)

• What happened was Mt Ruapehu’s crater lake unexpectedly released, approximately, two million cubic metres of water. The resulting lahar produced a 6-metre-high (19 feet) wave of water, ice, mud and rocks, which surged, tsunami-like, down the Whangaehu River.

• Sometime between 10.10 and 10.15 p.m. the lahar struck the concrete pylons of the Tangiwai railway bridge.

• At 10.21 p.m. the Wellington to Auckland express, which had nine carriages and two vans, reached the severely weakened bridge.

• As the bridge buckled beneath its weight, the engine plunged into the river, taking all five second-class carriages with it. The force of the torrent destroyed four of these carriages with little chance of survival for those inside.

• The sixth carriage or the first of the first-class carriages balanced on the ruined bridge before breaking free of the remaining three carriages and falling into the river. It rolled downstream before coming to rest on a bank.

• 21 of the 22 passengers in this carriage survived thanks, mostly, to Cyril Ellis and William Inglis who climbed into this carriage while it was balancing to help get passengers off. While they were on board the carriage fell but they managed to break a window when the carriage came to a stop. They were unable to save a little girl who had become stuck in her seat.

• Evidence suggested that the locomotive driver had applied the emergency brakes some 200 metres (218 yards or just over 2 football fields) from the bridge, which prevented the remaining three carriages from going down the river. This action saved many lives.

• Out of 258 people, 151 lost their lives that night. Out of 176 second-class passengers that were on board only 28 survived.

(SLIDE 6)

(SLIDE 7)

(SLIDE 8)


REITERATE

1. So today I shared with you a piece of New Zealand’s history about the Tangiwai disaster that occurred on Christmas eve 1953.
I now have this youtube video I found that was posted by the Auckland Museum where they show a computer generation of what the accident looked like and some interviews with survivors. This video will recap everything I have said.

(VIDEO)

ENERGIZE

1. Thank you