On December 14, 1973, The Fiji Times published the following reports:
Horror and courage in shipwreck
Eremasi Salusalu was thrashing about in the rough sea just before Uluilakeba capsized and sank on Monday when he heard a terrifying scream.
He looked up toward the doomed ship and saw a young woman half way out of the porthole.
She tried to squeeze her body through the porthole but could not escape.
Then she tried to withdraw her body, again without success. She screamed for help but no one could reach her.
Storm stole life jackets
Survivors of the ill-fated 212-tonne cargo and passenger ship Uluilakeba described yesterday how they had to jump into the sea without lifejackets when the ship capsized in a cyclone in southern Lau on Monday.
According to a surviving member of the crew, a box containing the life jackets blew overboard, before the capsize. People many of them children, who were in cabins in a tower deck went down with the ship when they could not get out in time.
Police yesterday listed 79 people missing in the tragedy.
Brothers tell of ordeal at sea
Second engineer Bernard Smith (25) and his brother William (21), said that when Uluilakeba sank in southern Lau on Monday it was the most terrible experience of their lives.
Captain Jesoni Kuruyawa, the ship’s master, was issuing hurricane warnings while Bernard was in the engineroom with his uncle chief engineer, Mr Malakai Osbourne, and his brother, a greaser.
Bernard told his uncle and his brother to leave while he kept the engine running. They hesitated to leave but he insisted. Bernard pluckily stuck to the engineroom but minutes later water poured into the ship.
Police list 41 alive, 84 lost
Police yesterday produced a list of 41 known survivors of the wreck of the Uluilakeba.
Thirty-eight survivors were aboard the British cargo ship Soochow when she berthed in Suva yesterday. Three more were ashore in Fulaga island and will come to Suva later.
Police issued also a list of 84 people presumed missing from the Uluilakeba and the government cutter Makogai.
The Commissioner of Police, Mr Tom Handlord, emphasized that police based the list of missing passengers and crewmen on the “best and only information available.”
Priest produces flour
Father Paul Coquereau, who runs the Roman Catholic mission at Naililili, Rewa, has produced factory to make flour and starch from cassava.
Through funs he obtained from France and other countries, he was able to set up a building to house machinery of his own design.
Work began on the factory five years ago and is now almost complete.
Fiji seeks Tonga-NZ air service
Fiji is disappointed that Tonga has failed to authorize Air Pacific to operate a service between Tonga and Auckland.
It has asked the Tongan Government to reconsider Fiji’s application for the service.
Civil aviation ministers from Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa decided at a Suva meeting to study ways of strengthening regional co-operation.
The ministers agreed to meet again to decide which suggestions deserved detailed study.
FASA President in games job
The Fiji Armature Sports Association has chosen its president, Mr Les Martin, as overall commandant of the national contingent for the Commonwealth Games in Christchurch next month.
Captain Stan Brown will be the general manager.
The appointments came from a meeting on Wednesday.
Selection of the two senior officials brings the team total to 45; 34 competitors and 11 officials.
The five sporting groups which will take part in the Games — representing athletics, swimming boxing, weightlifting and bowling — submitted team members’ names to the meeting also.
