GIRL'S NARRATIVE

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

GIRL'S NARRATIVE

ESCAPE FROM THE MASONIC , A FEARFUL EXPERIENCE

(By Telegraph.—Presi Association.) PALMERSTON N., This Day. A thrilling account of the collapse of the Masonic Hotel building is given by a young lady who arrived in a dishevelled state in Palmerston North late last night. Her clothing was torn, and her hair filled with pieces of plaster and debris, of which she appeared wholly oblivious. ■ . ■ . She was near the kitchen when the shake came, and she said that immediately huge blocks of masonry crashed all around. "I ran to the nearest door, where I found another girl," she said. "We could get no further, but crouched clown as the huge building crashed about our cars. Our nostrils and mouths were filled with a substance resembling putty, produced from the dust and plaster. A shaft of light Came through a narrow gap, and we pushed and - struggled until we were able to clamber out into safety. It was a fearful experience. We saw huge pillars five feet thick snap like carrots. We seemed to be fighting uphill through heaving masses of debris for hours. The earthquakes sounded like the constant discharge of cannon under our feet. Another of the girls in the tea-room -reached a side door when she became trapped. She was pulled out still alive, but we scarcely recognised her.; she seemed to have beon turned into 'a different person. A sister of the girl who escaped was visiting her from Auckland, and ' was with a friend in a flat when the earthquake occurred.-. "The place seemed to have been hit violently by a shell," stated the girl. "I ran to the door, but could see nothing, and I ran back and found- that my friend, who had been in tho bath, had been thrown out by the first shock. She caught up a j coat and tried to get down the stairs, but was nearly thrown down. Finally we managed to crawl out into the ro«m."