THE DEATH ROLL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1931, Page 14

THE DEATH ROLL

WAIPUKURAU, 4th February. Sunny, pleasant Napier, famed for its fine gardens and lovely homes^ lies stricken to-day in a chaotic tragedy. It is entirely impossible to describe tho scene. All along Marino Parade last evening, in the light of a full harvest moon, there were scattered families with their household goods round them, ■list'ess but duly glad to be aliv'3. wliiie in the town behind them lay countless dead beneath.tho ruins of ten acres of the most heavily built-upon part of Napier, which was levelled by yesterday morning's 'quake, except for a few of the larger modern reinforced concrete buildings,.most, of which are guttod by fire.; The earthquake was comparable with the, great earthquakes of history. As in a.ll earthquakes, the area of damage is strangely limited to certain quarters-, but in these every • /brick building-is a mound of rubble and means either a tragedy in trapped lives or desolation.. Not in a lifetime will the memory of this catastrophe pass.

"The death roll.in Napier alone, judging from .conversations with doctors and those, who '.are assisting in the care of th> injured; must run into hundreds. It Wa« /eau'tlonsly' assesed 'this. evening, by •j hospital'worker, who had assisted at H&ny.homes, as:2oo, but it may well be more. The dead cannot be counted till they are-found, and some of them will not be reached for many days. : , THE' NTTRBEB' HOME. .Orieeof • the greatest,- tragedies • was : in the hill, where the aifhtHa«r«e«r.were sleeping, when ..the ei*l«:oeeuired.. One nurse was thrown ligijfc,- through; the place ..where the wall lad been a;moment before. The handsome •three-storeyed brick building collapsed: like' a" house of cards. Three staff' men aro still under the ruins. Eleven murses • have been taken out, eight,of thorn1; being dead, while half a d'ojsen have, sustained fractures, one a .broken.back. ' Only three are said to JbpV. uninjured. .■■'■■■ :%Similarly,-at the old liomc, tvhere.'.there .were inmates.^ of both iexes from' 80 to 100 years 'of; age, the collapsed. Ten dead have been recovered already. . .. . ; The Technical College, a handsome ■buil'dingi of what has proved the deadliest .of materials in an earthquake country, brick, collapsed into a pile of nibble, with the scholars inside. Ten dead'have'been recovered there, and there^must be'more. Four priests aro known to have been killed at the seminary;^at/ Taradale, and the list is not completed . Apathetic contrast is the fate of the prisoners, working at- a" qiiarry. There are'hundreds of tons of (rock ■ there, and late, this evening nobody knew whether ,tho men are under'it'or 'not.' : '' - . : ' DREAD UNCERTAINTY. ;It iis • the, same with every fallen building. ; No one -knows who is under, it. After" the fire had raged through gome "of-the1 piles of brick and iron ajong^ the parade and in the ruined city area, charred, unrecognisable corpses iwere.foundl To'have approached these quaking^ tottering walls; —what were fceanis:and timbers are now replaced by i6wa of red-embers—wou]d haye merely aided to ithe1 list of, killed. Names and particulars must wait until certainty is established, if only for the sake of anxious relatives ■ outside.: It is easier ito..hear of the living than the. dead.- It is. risky moving about the -crashing, sputtering, streets, but disconsolate people were" abroad until late in the evening endeavouring to hear news of these dear to them.' It is the indelaiigable, /pressing quest of all. MANY KILLED. " Four people were killed by the breaking down'of the brick cathedral during ■the-.morning, service. In Dr. Moore's hospital there ■ was a fatality. A girl in the Union Steam Ship office was killed at work. : it is generally believed that there; are some cars and occupants beTieath the great slips round the bluff. Single instances of people, many women and children, being instantly killed by the collapse'of' homes, are common. The town is one .vast desolation, with the living-in quest of the dead. It will be a month before'all; the corpses can be recovered.. .Energies arc mostly being devoted'to getting out those who seem to hayo had a chance of surviving. It is knowii that' there are many people under buildings which' will take days .to^remoye from above them. • .What.-is needed in Napier to-day „ J8 ; succour, from outside; willing helpi ers wjio'1 are not dazed by the calamity • and the loss :of loved .ones, and the unstrieken portion of the Dominion . shbu.ld. respond with all the assistance it.,: can give. It is . estimated that ; ,£2,500,000 of damage has been caused in;tiie"city area "alone. .' Wearied out though most people are, !they; cannot sleep to-night. Many were »till walking about at midnight, unable pa. -.rest because of .the awful, sights peen-in jthe .morning. Men who saw the -war through, and were there inured to frightful sights, were frankly broken jnp'bythe'dreadful injuries seen to-day !*yhen! removing the dead and injured. ■ 'MIRACULOUS -ESCAPES. ' Everyone has ii talc to tell of miracuIbus escapes-or pathetic fatalities. One <*f the most-remarkable escapes was at the .Napier Boys' High School, where some .200; boys had just been taken out on the parade ground when the. shake commenced. .The headmaster, Stir. -Foster, came running out of the (Assembly-Hall literally as it collapsed. A -.-huge/piece-,of masonry appeared to <lrive him into, the earth, but it broke in two, half a ton falling on cither side of him, and when the dust .cleared he Jiad; merely a bruised leg. In the tobacco factory at Port Ahuriri, where isome. fifty girls were employed, only joiio was wounded. ;., SEEN FROM THE SEA. . From, the sea, as described by an eye Witness, the whole coast appeared to ■throw out' \ cloud of dust, and then the buildings could be seen collapsing. ' ■ The shock was followed by fire, which, '•with1 'the : high wind, spread without 3tope of check, because the town's water supply was cut off by burst pipes. 'A' single fire engine played sea water on' the nearest buildings, but for the most .part the brigade, as well as the (owners, were:powerless: THE DAMAGED PORTIONS. •The shock was most intensely felt Jj-om the Marine parade inwards, gradually decreasing- in effect towards Hastings. In the first quarter of a mile ifrom the waterfront, probably because there/there were the biggest buildings, •the damage was worst. Towards the BPutaekuri the wreckage is loss apparent, and there are homes with only the ehim'neys down, windows being intact, liiid pictures still on the walls. But none t>F the homes, save a'few with artcsians

ESTIMATED AT HUNDREDS

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

and saved cisterns, etc., have water, and water distribution was an important work all day. A WRECKED CITY. For ten acres or more the town is utterly wrecked. In Herschell street the Masonic Hotel, Parker's new threestory building, the Napier Club, and the Hawkes Bay County Council are heaps of rubbish. In Browning street the South British Insurance Co., Williams and Kettle's, the A.M.P., Loekyer's (where the flic started), Hanna's on oue sido and the Bank of New Zealand on the other, are utterly gone, either by 'quake demolition or fire. In Dickens street the new post office, a flue structure, is standing, but gutted. Anderson and Hanson's garage and the Hawkes Bay Motor Co. are burned. The Hawkes Bay Farmers was . still burning at a late hour. Dalgety's (ferro-concrete) was still undamaged at 6 p.m., seeming to resist the fire. On tho other side of Dickens street T.P. Pictures has its front down. In Tennyson street Dr. Leahy's and Dr. Gilray's and the fire brigade station are gone. Tho "Tclegr,aph" and "Herald" offices aro no more. Emerson street, from the Provincial Hotel to Hastings street, was burning well at dark. From Hastings street to Hurst's Buildings was burning. The Hawkes Bay Club seemed as though it would escape, also Murray, Roberta's, tho V.M.C.A.,' and the band rotunda. The wind changed to southerly ,at dusk, and it looked as though the fire would-be checked, but. a northwest return gave it fresh life at midnight. ; Ferro-concrete buildings of modern construction, such as tho Public Trust Office,, seem to stand earthquakes well, but only if faithfully built. Brick and coneiete ; mixture is merely a trap. TAKING HOLD. Too much cannot be said of tho splendid spirit of* the Napier people. There is something in big catastrophes that brings out the best in everyone, as did the Great War, anc^ the way in which people are forgetting: themselves to Others strikes the stranger forcibly. Property is nothing,, fatigue and personal feelings do not count. There aro many groups working wholeheartedly to get out the dead and injured, supplying water and food. Amongst them, and one of „the best, was'that of some 200 men organised by Mr. J. E. Speakxnan. They have been busy all day getting the injured to places of succour. Dressing stations, with tho assistance of the doctors and tho Bed Cross, have been established at Nelson Park, Clive Square, M'Lean Park, Fox's House at Awatoto, and Napier Park'racecourse, where hundreds of injured people are receiving attention, though, deaths hourly occur. An operating station has been installed at the racecourse. There is a first-aid station at tho Botanical Gardens. Dozens of people have placed garages and other comparatively safe buildings at the disposal of the helpers. . The women of Napier are wonderful. "It's no use being any .other way, times like these," said one of them, and this seems the general motto; but to see it carried out so thoroughly is amazing. Death is a commonplace in every street, ;biit people are too busy to wear the customary gloom in such eases, '.working for others . taking its place. • Concerted action is yet impossible, but a great deal is being done. SEA RECEDES. As in the great 'quake of Wellington in 1855, the coastline has risen in this case some five feet The "Iron Pot" has only a foot or two of water in it, and the fishing fleet is high and dry. The Vejtfnica had little water under her, but this was at' low tide. Those who know the Pania buoy will be surprised to hear that small shipping can no longer go inside it, having to-now go for a mile or more farther out to clear the Pania reef, which has only three feet -pf water on it at low tide. ■ A senseless scare was started by an official who issued a warning that a tidal wave was due, and urged people to make for the hill. Many did, to find their homes burned on their return. The shipping, as soon as the shock was- felt, made, for blue water, and now lies in.the offing. A WRECKED HILL. Tho hill, on which there were some beautiful homes, suffered severely—indeed more so than the r^est of the town. Here was the Nurses' Home and the M'Hatdy Maternity Home. Looking down on the hill, most of the houses not of wood seem to have been pancaked, the roofs being very little off the ground. The whole of the face of the bluff nearing the harbour from the Marine parade has slipped, completely covering the road, in places over one- hundred feet deep. Port Ahuriri, where the oil stores were, is blazing merrily at midnight. The West Shore is completely isolated, as the embankment is broken in many places. Port Ahuriri seems in a fair way to be gutted. '. FISSURES AND BROKEN RIDGES. Seen from the air, the whole of _ the country ■ between Napier and Hastings is criss-crossed by fissures, some of them wideand very ugly. All through the Napier streets run fissures, either longitudinally or ; across. • These' have been filled with ' logs and posts, and cars and cycles are freely in use. Every motorist who comes- in—and most of them seem to get here—has a thrilling tale of bridges tip-tilted, fissures, and generally rough going due to slips, etc. The-bridges are in a bad way, some of them lacking entire spans, while the approaches of others are seamed across by fissures impassable until filled. Hastings has a big death and casualty roll, b.u,t little fire. The Tomoana works were very severely damaged.- Reports from the country towards Gisborne show that there will be a big casualty list, but Gisborne seems to have got off better than Napier. At 2.30 a.m.' the fire was well in hand.