1.
AIR V..Project, one caisson missing
0.07

2.
LV Windmill in Veers
0.12

3.
LV Gap in caisson
0.17

4.
SLV..DITTO
0.21

5.
SV..DITTO
0.27

6.
LV Final caisson towed to gap
0.31

7.
LV Yacht "Piet Hein"
0.36

8.
CU name
0.38

9.
SV Queen Juliana on yacht (right of group)
0.42

10.
SCU..DITTO
0.46

11.
LV Final caisson nears gap
0.52

12.
Closer V..DITTO
0.58

13.
LV PAN.. Dam, PAN to Island off North Beveland
1.09

14.
LV final caisson into position
1.14

15.
SCU..DITTO
1.18

16.
SV PAN DOWN..tug pushes caisson into position
1.22

17.
SV men open valve, section sinks
1.37

18.
CU..DITTO
1.40

19.
TV small gap between sections
1.45

20.
SV PAN..lorry tips rubble into gap
1.51

21.
SLV Crowd applaud
1.53

22.
SCU Burgomasters celebrate by holding bands and waving
1.58

23.
GV completed dam
2.03



Initials TDH/VES PC/V/MR/ES



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Watched by Queen Juliana aboard the Royal yacht, and by the Dutch people on television, the last of seven huge concrete caissons was put into position April 24 across the Veers estuary to complete a dam from the island of Walcheren to the island of North Beveland. This is the first of four such dams in the GBP250 million Delta Plan, designed to prevent a recurrence of such disasters as the February, 1953, flooding in which more than 1,400 people were drowned.

Each costing GBP100,000, the caissons measure 140 x 50-feet. The tide, in the estuary, which rises and falls an average of ten feet, can still ebb and flow through the concrete pillars of the caissons, but on April 27, the steel hatch doors in the caissons will be dropped, filled with sand, and the North Sea will be cut off from the estuary for ever. Then the caissons will be covered over with rocks and concrete, and the great dyke - the highest sea wall in Holland - will extend from shore to shore, with a wide motor road running along its top.

The other three dams in this gigantic project will be built across the Haringvliet Estuary - to be completed in 1968, the Brouwerhaven Inlet - in 1970, and the East Scheldt - in 1978. The Delta Plan will change the entire province of Zealand from an island 'empire' to a 'continent' offering better possibilities of development.