GREAT ACTIVITY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 263, 5 August 1942, Page 6

GREAT ACTIVITY

Earthquake Repairs In Wellington WORK ON DAMAGED BUILDINGS Never in the recent history of Wellington has the building trade been so busily engaged on essential work. This consists for the main part in eliminating the danger to the public from buildings which have been cracked, split, or partly shattered by Sunday morning’s earthquake. 'lt is .said that at present no contracting builders, and building tradesmen and labourers are unemployed in Wellington. Manners Street is a hive of activity, with repairs to half a dozen buildings, including three hotels and one private boardinghouse in full swing. Trams were not permitted to use the thoroughfare vesterday, as it was still considered dangerous to invite trouble through traffic vibration with so many structures showing defects. In Willis Street the roped-off areas include the Hotel Windsor and King’s Chambers. Demolition was begun yesterday of the tower on the Willis Street-Chew’s Lane corner of the Hotel Windsor building. The erection of scaffolding for this purpose would have been very expensive, so the work is being done from the roof behind, with a tarpaulin stretched outward on stavs to prevent fragments falling on passers-by. As an additional precaution the entrance to Chew’s Lane has been closed and Willis Street is roped off almost to the tramway Men were employed on the Aubrey Gaulter building, on the corner of Brandon Street and Featherston Street, removing the fractured parapet. This is one of Wellington’s most interesting old buildings. It was originally built as city council offices, and there, for many years, the city council used to meet in the upstairs room. Admission to the town clerk’s office was by the Brandon Street entrance, and the city engineer, the city treasurer, and the inspector of nuisances, had rooms which opened off the downstairs corridor. The architecture of the building is attractive and symmetrical, with fancy well expressed as became the time. The arch of the windows on the ground floor centres in a mask or face, well executed in cemeut, every one of them different. The base of the building, instead of being of stone or concrete, is of cast iron, exclusively moulded for the job.

Damage of a more or less serious nature was done in other buildings in Featherston Street. The corner of the parapet of Routh’s Building, a fourstory brick structure on the corner of Johnston Street and Featherston Street, appears to be rather badly split, and the footpath below has been roped off iu both streets ,as a measure _of precaution against accident. Opposite, Invicta House has suffered mostly through the loss of many windows, including the big plate-glass ones on the ground level. It looks as though a good deal of work will have to be done round the top part of Levin and Co.’s three-story warehouse, which runs from Customhouse Quay to Featherston Street, with Johnston Street as its southern boundary. Here the ornamental openwork parapet and part of the structure itself have been cracked. In front-the building shed a great mass of skyline masonry during the earthquake. The New Zealand Police Headquarters are partly roped off, due to a cracked parapet. Manners Street Traffic.

The position relating to traffic in Manners Street was made plain by the city engineer, Mr. K. Luke, yesterday afteruoou. lie said that the inspectors of the Labour Department were opposed to the opening of the southern tramways track for use, which had been thought to be feasible. The Labour Department went so far as to say that if anything of the sort were attempted it would not approve the scaffolding being used in connexion with damaged buildings in that area, and that, said Mr. Luke, ended the argument. Perhaps, after all it was best, as it enabled the contractors to get on with their work with greater expedition than might have been possible were trams using the thoroughfare. The prohibition applied also to pedestrians, exception being made in the case of those having business to transact with premises in the closed area. At Wellington South. Wellington South was by no means spared by the earthquake. Premises in Adelaide Road were considerably affected, particularly within a quarter of a mile south of the Basin Reserve. Fresh damage appeared in the Caledonian Hotel, opposite the Basin Reserve, where a certain amount of repairs hud already been done. Now a crack descends from the parapet on the western side right down tojlie entrance on that side of the building. Directly opposite the Caledonian Hotel stands a two-story brick shop property of restricted frontage. This building, though still standing, is reported to be completely shattered. The parapet has been cracked and jerked an inch toward the street. .So dangerous is the state of this building that the city engineer has roped off the whole of the corner, though the actual corner premises are of timber construction, so that people may not pass beneath the shattered building. A little further to the south the front shop premises of the Parsons Bakery suffered grave damage. This is a twostoried brick-built structure, which stands on the street frontage, but is separated from the main bakery at the rear. Both the front and side walls are damaged.

On the eastern side of Adelaide Road, still in the same neighbourhood, stands the three-story brick-built National Hat Mills premises (owned by the John Nicol estate). Though this building is braced with transverse steel bars, it suffered some bad fractures, particularly the southern wall. There are minor cracks extending from the top of the parapet in the western and southern walls of the Tramway Hotel, which is also of brick construction.

More Serious than First Supposed. A statement was made yesterday afternoon by the city engineer on the degree of damage caused by the earthquake in many city structures. “At first, being .Sunday, it was only possible to judge from the outside the nature of the damage done," he said. “Since then there has been a little more time to make careful inspections of the interior of apparently damaged structures and it has been ascertained that the damage is much more extensive than was imagined on Sunday and Monday. I could say quite a lot about it, but perhaps it would do no good. “One of the buildings inspected this morning by the mayor and myself was the traffic office. It is in a bad way. As the result of the jar the ceiling upstairs looks like parting company with the walls. There is a space which varies from one inch to 2J Inches, where the ceiling joins the exterior walls, which looks dangerous. “Brigadier Green, the EKS. eva-

cuation officer, who has a room in this building, has been ordered to quit at once, and during the afternoon the order went forth that the Director of Parks (Mr. J. G. MacKenzie) and his staff, would have' to vacate their offices also on the same iloor. So far the traffic office staff below had not received orders to leave this building.” When these premises were used as a central fire brigade station, every earthquake of any magnitude made itself manifest there. Generally speaking, it was considered to be one of the worst earthquake risks in tlie city. Contractors Released. When the city engineer was asked yesterday how labour was to be secured to tackle the hundred and one jobs the earthquake created, Mr. Luke said that after a conference on Monday night the Commissioner of Defence Construction, Mr. J. Fletcher, agreed to release eight of the big contractors working under an arrangement with the Government, to undertake urgent works on damaged premises in the city. These contractors were communicated with straight away. They reported to him at 9 a.m yesterday, when jobs of the most urgent character were allotted to them, each one being supplied with the name of the owner of the affected building and his architect. Mr. Luke added that to the best of his knowledge these men made a start with the preliminary work yesterday afternoon. DAMAGE TO POST OFFICES A tour of Post and Telegraph Department property in the Wairarapa was made by the Postmaster-General, Mr. Webb, and the Director-General of the department, to inspect the damage caused by the latest earthquake. Scaffolding for the removal of the tower of the Lower Hutt Post Office is iu course o. erection. Tlie tower was severely damaged in the June quake, but suffered little on Sunday. The clock lias already been removed by the Lower Hutt City Council. CENTRE OF EARTHQUAKE The centre of Sunday morning’s earthquake was near that of the big shock of June 24, but at. a slightly greater depth, states the acting-director of the Dominion Observatory, Mr. R. C. Hayes, who bases his statement on seismological information now to hand. The greater depth would account for differences in the surface effects, such as the shorter duration of the recent Shock, and the wore even distribution of intensity. The actual magnitude of Sunday’s earthquake was nearly as great as the shock of June 24. It would, therefore, appear it was iu reality an after-shock of the former earthquake. There was previously a marked absence of large after-shocks, such as might have been expected normally. The shock at 4.48 p.m. on Saturday was from the same region, but had an origin rather deeper than the previous after-shocks. A brief after-shock, with an intensity of 2 to 3 on the Rossi-Forel scale, was felt in Wellington at 10.5 p.m. on Monday. The distance of its origin front Wellington was about 50 miles. At 8.6 a.m.'yesterday there was another after-shock, a slight one which cpuld ojjly just be felt