WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF TOWN

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1931, Page 13

WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF TOWN

(By "The Post's" Special Reporter.)

NAPIER, Tuesday. "Yes," said our guide, "there are certainly some dead under that pile, but we do not know how many." • The pile was the refuse of the old Technical School building at Napier. Not very far away was the new Technical School, which had stood the earthquake well. But, alas! the" children had started the year in the old one. They had started that very day (Tuesday). ''My boy began his school year at 9 a.m., said a parent, "and he was dead at eleven."

As the pressman passed down one blazing street and up another, ■vieivinjj hundreds of piles, many of them funeral piles, he could scarcely believe that all this had happened since a few minutes before 11 a.m.' The shock that disturbed; Wellington about that time had descended upon Napier like a bolt from the blue. It came with a crash. There was not even time to close the doors of strong-rooms. There was only' time to race to the doors, or to the windows if the doors were jammed. Many people lost the race. This evening—it is 11 p.m., about twelve hours after the crash—-they can-still only guess at the death-list. It is thought that the number of children dead in the, Technical School might not be more than ten. Something similar is said about nurses lying beneath the tumbled pile of the Nurses' Home, once a threestory building. Ditto the Hospital and numerous office buildings. CRUMPLED ROADS. As the car from Wellington raced northward the " Evening Post" Press party found chimneys down at Dannevirke, and north thereof it had to negotiate- cracks in the road and dodge debris shaken from the road walls. The ground at the approaches to bridges was crumpled up. Across the bitumen pavemont ran tilts and cracks with one edge a foot higher than the other. This occurred particularly north df Waipukurau aud Waipawa. Darkness was falling on the entry to Hastings, and hero the death-list began. Here was seen the completely spread out brick-and-mortar building with the irou roof resting on piles of debris. Not one, but dozens of these. Waipukurau w;as nothing to Hastings, just as Hastings was later found to be nothing to Napier. Twice, out of three times the car was stopped by impossible -bridges round Hastings. The third time was lucky, and a course was, shaped for Napier. But first of all there was anincident in Hastings. ■

'"You cannot pass this way—martial law is in force,'' said a young man with a military belt. A little parley with him was possible. It appeared that' the central area of Hastings had been walled off because of. general collapse, and (he explained) the possibility of looting. There appeared to be smouldering fires, and the restraint of traffic was possibly wholly justified. But there was no objection to the p'aity motoring' on to Napier, and a quick decision, resulted in that course being taken. If tragedy stalked in Hastings, double tragedy was probably in Napier. It was definitely dark when the car, after its two false starts, again ' struck the main northern highway. But the darkness was lighted by a perfect moon. A STRICKEN CITY. Never did a softer night smile upon a human catastrophe. As wo sped by the noble avenue of trees that line the highway, hardly touched by the breeze and resplendent in moonlight, it was hard to believe that we were leaving one stricken city to go to a worse one. All this calmness and beauty of the night seemed incompatible with broken bridges, fallen walls, road crevasses, :and the civic ruin both behind us and before us. It would be between 10 and 11 p.m. when the sea came in sight off Napier, that sea which the messages received in Wellington had described as shallowing, receding from tlio puskod-up< coast-line. In the moonlight the sea answered nothing to the question our eyes asked. Only it looked wondrous calm and peaceful. Soon, however, shone in the air a glare—the glare of burning Napier. Along the Marine Parade began this aiew chapter of tin: Inferno, with buttered homes on 6no side, on the oilier side refugees sleeping out on the seashore amid stacks of hastily salvaged goods, Jind beyond them again that quietly heaving «ca looking liko an

CLEAN SWEEP OF BUSINESS !A&EA

angel but endowed with all the ferocity described by. the well-authenti-cated witnesses of what had happened only a few hours before. These refugees knew or had been told of the lifting of the coastline. But there they were, seeking slumber on the sands between a line of.burning buildings and the line of surf.

Presently the row of * parked motorcars on Napier Marine Parade came to an. end. Beyond was the front portion of the sector of the town where the fire raged fiercest. This . fire-swept area, the heart of Napier, stretched from the Marine Parade inland to Clive Square, and extended on the north to the foot of Shakespeare road, and on the south to Dickens street. Scarcely any building in that area survives damage or destruction. Leaving the car, we walked along the Parade past five hundred- yards of burning buildings, right up to the band rotunda in frontof the Masojric Hotel. But the roof of the rotunda was on the ground, and all that remained of the Masonic Hotel was some gaunt gapped wall's round which the flames ,were leaping. A little way beyond the Masonic the waterfront was fire-free. Just here there is a point from which, looking' inland, you can see down, Tennyson street and down Emerson\ street into the heart of business Napier. All through this area is*' ruin, and along the cross-streets like Hastings street. WRECKED BUILDINaS. All the banks have gouo, so hava most of the hotels, also the old and the now post offices. The public hospital is partly destroyed, several leading private hospitals had to be evacuated, and the prisoners had to be liberated from the gaol and the lock-up.' The Government buildings at the, foot of Tennyson street, includiug the Lands Department and thp Public Works Department, are destroyed, fire completing th,e work of the earthquake. The Public Trust building is still standing, and in the darkness appeared to have escaped five. Dalgety's building seems to have withstood the ■ shock and: dodged the conflagration, and the same'rpmark applies to the Caledonian Hotel. But these are exceptions, and it can be said that almost a' clean Bweep has been made of the finest part of Napier. The number of two-storied, three-stor-ied, and four-storied buildings ruined is too.great to be.counted. Euin seems to have overtaken all the big businesses in the way of drapery, etc., including /Blythe's, M'Gruer^s, Parker's, the D.S.L., Hannah's, Hallenstein's, and the Hawkes Bay Farmers. Beside the Masonic Hotel, it is reported that the Criterion, Central, and Provincial are destroyed. The earthquake shook the Boer' War Memorial, and destroyed the head of the trooper, but it was reeov-, ered and placed on the steps, still with its face to the foe. The Napier Municipal Theatre is ruined, also the two picture theatres, and the newspaper offices. All lawyers' offices save one are gone. ■ As we walk this terrible Tuesday night through these ruined streets the scene beggars description, tut still more wonderful is the composure of the people. BUILDINGS DYNAMITED. At least one hundred fires are blazing at once. When the water supply proved inadequate, the fire brigade devoted itself to pulling down and dynamiting, sp as to keep the fires within bounds. '' They did this job so well that, though fire reigns supreme within an enormous area, it is eating itself, out, and has already done so to such an extent that it is safe to go through tho five-lighted streets (or at any rate people; arc doing it) without being stifled by heat or smoke. Fire brigadesmen and volunteers are still at work to-night. There are constant detonations, which some people think are barthquake sounds, and others think are falling walls, but which may be new dynamitings by the fire-fighters. There are repeated earth tremors, but in two or three hours we luive felt only one severe one. ♦ While tho fires of Napier flash and fall and flash again, away out on tho calm sea are the twinkling lights of the steamers which put to sea when trouble started, ono of; which reported to Wellington that the roadstead was shallowing so rapidly that she was forced t.u retreat. Did this really happen? "Yes, indeed," answer the Napier people. And ia the sea still lapping on the' beach well below the,, old low-water mark? "Yffs, indeed," is the response. And

the informant leads the pressman down to the beach off the Marine parade. Pull 20 yards away from the present sea level he stops. ? fJust about here is the old low-water mark." And has all that happened since 11 a.m.? "Yes, indeed." ' ' You ask: "And what about the naval sloop Veronica?" ,The informant has heard that, at low Water she rested on the mud down. at. the port—but :aa this is hearsay, leave it at that! WONDERFUL BLTTEJACKETS. It appears, however, that she is still at the port, that her wireless has been invaluable ,as some substitute, for the wrecked land lines (telegraph and telephone), and that her bluejackets came to Napier's rescue within half an hour and did wonderful work. , . The failure of water and of electric light is due probably as much to wreckage of the reticulation as to head-works damage. So thoroughly crumpled up is Napier tha* pipes and wires are broken all over the place. At the water-supply reservoir a high pressure tank (80ft above the reservoir) became destroyed by the earthquake and fell into the reservoir itself. The sudden combintion of earthquake, fires, and no water left Napier helpless amid a ring of independent blazes all converging into a. conflagration. ■ . There are about ten buildings carrying, with stocks, insurances equal to about £400,000. And N these are only ten. What', then, is the total loss? And will any insurance be payable.on earthquake-ruined buildings or on buildings ; that through earthquake have caught' fire? "There is the • ruins of my home," said a Napier doctor. "Fortunately my wife and child are in Wellington.1 I hope that the maid escaped. But as I have not heard from her or her people, I am not sure." The roason of his doubt is an immense pile of debris which it would take days to shift. ; An earth tremor interrupts him as tie speaks, but he goes on to say that Dot a doctor's house in Tennyson street, the home of doctors, has been spared. BLAZING PILES OF DEBRIS. Theso piles of • debris,, below which there may be bodies, are everywhere; many of them still blaze. Even-; where fire has entered not, the cleaning up work/will be immense, and one imagines that a genius of organisation will be required and that vast numbers: of workers will be absorbed in the job. :

Skirting tho'fire-swept area, the residential hill behind Napier, callei". Scinde Island, is inspected in tho darkness. Eight on the back-line of this island of high ground is '.a house in which a mother and daughter were imprisoned. The mother had a huge weight of debris on her legs. The ;doctor aforementioned tells how Police Inspector Cumming, with an assistant, laboured .to remove it, and the,, got the two ladies put, injured but alive. ',

The doctor here leaves to enter a wooden building. It has been a garage, but now it is a hospital where the two ladies mentioned^ and others, are under treatment. ' This is one of the sights of Napier terrace, Scinde Island. Another is the half-ruined' general hospital, and the pathetic pilo which was the nurses' home. The doctor dares not attempt to say how many have been lost there. On the way down the hill from Napier terrace, there is a glare far out on the plains. "That is Hastings on fire,", he saya.

It is now past midnight, and thousands of people arc sleeping in tho open air. At least, they are lying down, not only on the beach (thinking of tidal waves) but in scores of spots in and round the city, and up on the hills. One park has a big encampment. PEOPLE REMAIN IMPASSIVE. These notes arc being written in tho motor-car on the Marine parade, within a stone's throw of sea, flro, and collapsed tenements. But if anyone in this extraordinary environment is worried, there is no outward sign of it. Most people here are as impassive as as the surviving Norfolk pines on the Parade. Perhaps they think a lot, but they say little. As one glances through the window of the car at the still blazing shell of the Masonic Hotel ho wonders whether it is real or whether he is merely looking at a motion picture of the burning of Rome. Before this fatal Tuesday had closed, nurses from Danuevirke and Palmerston North Hospitals, and an ambulance from Wellington, had reached Hastings. A temporary hospital* has been set up at Awatoto for patients evacuated from Napier's ruined hospitals. Tho Anglican Cathedral partly collapsed during a service (resulting, it is reported, in some deaths), and is now no more. The now Presbyterian Church is also destroyed. One hotel shed its whole front, which dropped into tho street. Drinks were still served in the uncovered bar. ' Tho outstanding impression of people

who went through the thick of it is tn# appalling suddenness of the blow. There, was nothing to do but run from it, and more than one were killed, by fallinf missiles after gaining the open street! It seems that "brick and mortar" buiia« ings suffered particularly. Many wbode* dwellings near them escaped, -j

A private hospital on the Marine par» ade, a three-storied modern building, did not crumple up, but seems'-.to liar* sunk on its foundations and staato weirdly out of plumb. Some good w«cue work was done here.- All itsgM t& collapse are in evidence in Napier, a»4 the ghosts of 'buildings, and the litter strewing the streets, assume the weirdest shapes. ■'/■'■ i ."■ ■; V.'; In the building owned by the H&wkea Bay County Council, and occupied by; the owner and the Union" Co., was employed Miss Dewes, a typist, who lost her life in the crash. . Lastly,1 there is van imperative demaai in Napier for more food.