The Murchison Earthquake, 1929

Some of New Zealand's worst earthquakes are matters of recent history. In 1929, about mid-morning on 17 June, both Islands, almost from Auckland to the Bluff, were rocked in greater or less degree by earthquake shocks which struck with devastating force in the upper districts of the South Island from Nelson in the north to Westport and Greymouth in the west. The epicentre of the disturbances was in one of the recognised great fault lines of the South Island in the vicinity of the Lyell Range, a few miles west of Murchison, a small rural township with a population of about 300. In all 17 lives were lost, 10 of those killed being in the Murchison area which was shattered to the extent of being rendered virtually uninhabitable. So severe were the shocks in this region that, if they had occurred in any of the populous localities of the Dominion, the death roll must have been appalling. For many miles around, the countryside was changed from a typical New Zealand pastoral region into a shambles of fissures, landslides, floods, and destroyed roads, bridges, and buildings. Nelson, the nearest city, with a population in excess of 20,000, suffered heavy structural damage, but fortunately was removed from the worst effects of the continuing shocks. Westport and Greymouth, busy centres of the coal industry and thickly populated, were also shaken to their foundations with heavy loss. But it was in the predominantly rural districts in between that the full force of the tremors was felt. Roads, railways, and communication services were either destroyed or so seriously disrupted that the task of evacuation from the stricken areas was dangerous as well as difficult. It was not only man's handiwork that suffered. Mountains, hills, rivers, and lakes were affected by destructive earth movements, and even today, more than 30 years afterwards, tell-tale scars are plainly visible in many spots where subsidence or upthrust has completely altered the topography of the district. The Murchison earthquake was no terror of a day or two. For up to a fortnight, frequently to an accompaniment of rain, thunderstorms, floods, and bitter cold, the tremors followed one after the other.

The Hawke's Bay Earthquake, 1931

Catastrophes are of the order of events often loosely labelled. Comparatively few deserve the distinction, but in New Zealand it will be generally accepted that the Hawke's Bay earthquake merits isolation as the Dominion's greatest disaster. Napier and Hastings in ruins, and half-a-dozen lesser provincial centres shattered in February 1931, represent the worst tragedy in the history of the Dominion. From the debris of earthquake and fire, the bodies of 256 dead were recovered, and no precise inventory has ever been made of the injuries suffered or the material resources lost. At the time, the earthquake was estimated to have cost £5,000,000 in Napier and nearly £2,000,000 in Hastings.

It was at 10.47 a.m. on 3 February 1931 that the first shock struck Hawke's Bay. Milne's Earthquakes (1939 edition, by A. W. Lee, a standard world text on such matters) described and illustrated the occurrence at length, and Dr Charles Davison, a recognised British authority, included the Hawke's Bay upheaval in his selection of the world's 18 worst earthquakes in the last 200 years. It would be idle to attempt in short compass a detailed description of the destruction of Hawke's Bay's two main centres. In Napier, familiar landmarks completely disappeared. Bluff Hill, a substantial suburban promontory, crumbled and all but disintegrated; Ahuriri Lagoon, a wide stretch of water, was upthrust to the extent of producing 9,000 acres of dry land; and some of the city's largest structures—the Nurses' Home, a Home for the Aged, the Technical College, the Public Library, the Cathedral, and countless warehouses, office blocks, and dwellings—collapsed with heavy loss of life. And what the quake did not destroy a great fire did its best to consume. With the city's fire-fighting facilities in ruins, Napier was ablaze within a few minutes of the earthquake, the flames sweeping through 10 acres of buildings. And in all this 161 people died. In Hastings the story was much the same. Traders, shoppers, and workers died where they stood as the town toppled. And in the evening, after a second violent shock at dusk, fire added to the general chaos. In one large department store customers and staff perished together, and in a leading hotel trapped men died in the second wave of tremors while rescuers toiled to release them. A total of 93 lost their lives in Hastings.

The earthquake's trail of destruction stretched over 300 miles from Wairoa (where two deaths occurred) to Dannevirke and north Wairarapa. North of Napier great stretches of coastline slipped into the sea and, throughout the whole provincial district, roads, railways, bridges, communications, and public services were either destroyed or disrupted. Hillsides disappeared, rivers were blocked or changed their courses, and huge cracks and fissures opened all over the countryside. The stricken population, up to 30,000 in the centres, were deprived of every elementary necessity of life—food, water, light, telephones, and transport. And to complete the devastation and add to the terror, the earth continued to quiver and shake for 10 days, some of the succeeding shocks equalling the intensity of the first disastrous upheaval. The story of courage, unselfishness, and self-sacrifice displayed in those days in the shattered areas is an inspiring one, but nothing became Hawke's Bay more in its adversity than the completeness and expedition of the rehabilitation it achieved with nationwide assistance under the two commissioners appointed to direct the huge task of reconstruction.

Wellington Earthquakes

Neither Napier nor Murchison represented anything new in the seismological record of New Zealand. The country's earthquake proneness was familiar to the earliest settlers, many of whom were terrified by tremors in 1840, the foundation year of the Wellington settlement. Since then the record of the middle districts of the country—the south of the North Island and the north of the South Island-has been an unenviable one. In 1848 many colonists turned their backs permanently on Wellington when the new settlement was more than half destroyed, and those who stayed suffered again in 1855 when a disastrous earthquake rocked both sides of Cook Strait, causing a dozen deaths, Maori and Pakeha. The shocks caused heavy loss and great discouragement in many pioneer localities still struggling to establish them selves. At regular intervals in later years, 1868, 1890, 1897, 1904, 1913, and 1914, major earthquake disturbances were experienced over a wide territory stretching from Wanganui in the north to Banks Peninsula in the south.

Then, in June 1942, Wellington, the Hutt Valley, North and South Wairarapa, and the Manawatu bore the brunt of another series of violent earthquakes which destroyed hundreds and damaged thousands of houses and large public and private buildings. The devastation was widespread, but with the experts still trying to assess losses and estimate the extent of necessary demolitions, another series began. On 1 and 2 August in the same year, the greater part of the southern end of the North Island experienced the impact of further major shakes which added noticeably to the desolation still unrepaired. Wellington, Carterton, Masterton, Eketahuna, Pahiatua, and Palmerston North all suffered structural losses in greater or less degree. In the Wairarapa the cost was estimated at £500,000, and it was officially stated that the damage in the whole area as a result of the two disasters-in June and August—was in excess of £2,000,000. Fortunately, the loss of life in each case was small, the total not exceeding half a dozen persons.

by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.