SEEN FROM THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1931, Page 10

SEEN FROM THE SEA

COLLAPSE OF COAST LINE

TWIN CONFLAGRATIONS

(By /'The Post's" Special Reporter.) AUCKLAND, sth February. , There was no" rumble, .no preinonitary creeping, no booming, no warning at all, but an uncanny trembling o£ the sea when the Shaw-Savill liner Taranaki was violently shaken as if struck from beneath. The wholo ship quivered and shook as if the engines had taken charge or some serious accident had occurred in the engine-room, but the engineers on duty reported no trouble below. Meanwhile the ship was oscillating from stem to stern, the masts and derricks quivering, and the standing rigging vibrating like harp strings'. It is thought that this shake lasted for forty seconds. Gangs from shore to work the cargo from lighters had just come aboard and were preparing to handle meat. They were two hours late in starting bocause a stop work meeting had been held ashore, and they did' not leave Port Ahuriri for the ship until 10 o'clock. When the ship was shaken there was a cry from tho cargo workers, "Christ Almighty! Look at the shore!" Shakespeare Bluff was seen to be sliding down into the sea, enveloped in clouds of yellow dust, which rose to twice the height of the Bluff. Simultaneously all round the coast as far as the eye could see great clouds of dust from falling faces of headlands rose into the air, resembling a gigantic bombardment with high explosives. The Spit undulated for its whole length, and the larger white beacon waggled like a pendulum and finally stayed canted over at an angle of 30 degrees. CONTUSION ON SHORE. When the dust clouds cleared away it was seen that the Nurses' Homo on the top of tho Bluff was in ruins, and the open space in front of the Hospital proper was speedily filled - with patients, but soon the port side of the Bluff and its houses and gardens were obscured by great billowing clouds of black smoke and whirling flames. The shore gangs, scrambled aboard the lighters aiid attendant launches, which made for the port, but for some time the vessels manoeuvred' at the entrance as if it were unnavigable, and so it proved, the bottom rising (or the water receding) by from 12ft to 15ft. Soundings taken when the Taranaki was at anchor showed,a depth of 42ft; i after the shako the soundings at the samo position were 24ft. The surface of the sea was discoloured in patches. The sea was. then fi>t, but a gentle undulating swell followed immediately after tho disturbance. . The air was still and sultry. Soon after the fire in the port broke out, a huge column of smoke with a gigantic mushroom top was seen rising over the Bluff. Meanwhile the flames had totally enveloped tho port, but though near the oil tanks they were blown away from that vicinity The oil stores, however, were seen to be blazing. By this time, -. owing to shoaling at the anchorage and continued violent shocks at sea, tho Taranaki and subsequently the Northumberland were taken further out to sea, anchoring between three and four, miles from the breakwater. This new position showed the town of Napier up as a raging furnace, with the Courthouse, tho library, and some .other wooden buildings between them and the Defence building at the foot of the Bluff standing, but others had disappeared. The flames were rising hundreds of feet above them, topped by heavy black smoke. AT PORT AHURIRI. At the port the conflagration was no less extensive, and there during the afternoon a great • spiral column of flame shot up to a height of probably from 200 ft to 300 ft, with a black umbrella of smoke in th'o distance. To,wards Hastings there was an extensive thick mass of smoke, with flames. ■At night tho glow continued vividly till 3 o'clock on Wednesday morning, dying down in intensity towards daybreak. Napier by night appeared like a vast furnace, flames and snioko sweeping from the Promenade into the centre of the town. A conspicuous feature irradiated by the flames was the spire of the Catholic Church and the new spire of St. Paul's Church. A great concrete private hospital on the sea front was riven and askew. Shakes were felt on the ship all through the night, several of them ■very violent, one in particular at 12.35 a.m., another at'2.ls a.m., and a third, a most severe' jolt, at 7.20 a.m. During the morning and afternoon the Bluff face was slipping intermittently, sending up thick clouds of dust and blending witn the smoke from the embers of what was once the town of Napier. It was obvious from the masses of rock sweeping from the Bluff fanwise into the- sea that any persons ■who were walking or driving i«i cars towards the Breakwater would be overwhelmed benoath thousands of tons of rock. EFFECT ON SHIPPING. H.M.S. Veronica, which had been doing hydrographieal work on the coast, had scarcely finished mooring/when the disaster occurred. She lay at her, berth well inside the port, secured with six lines, five of which snapped like sewing cotton. When the shake came, the ship was tossed up and down like a paper boat. Soon after the earthquake the Union Company's Waipiata, which was coming into Napier, reported that patches of three fathoms had risen outside the harbour limits, signifying the unsafety of navigation in the immediate locality. Warnings were sent out to ships of tho extinction of all shore navigation lights, but tho automatic light on the Bluff kept on blinking all through the night,' except when it was obscured by clouds from tho falling rocky faces of the cliff. TERRIBLE SIGHTS ASHORE. The relief parties from the ships reported terrible sights ashore of charred ■bodies lying in tho ruins and about, the streets. Estimates of the mortality ranged from. 500 to 1000. No one knows even now what it actually is, because ' there were many visitors in the town from Hawkes Bay district and elsewhere, but it was learned from the shore at 1 p.m. on Wednesday that there we're 150 deaths and' some five hundred seriously injured, with twenty-five killed at Hastings and five at Waipukurau. Seventeen bodies were found in the ruins at the Hospital, and it was believed that twenty-ono wore killed at the fall of the Bluff, where seven cars were buried. These figures, however, must be taken with reserve. They are likely to bo exceeded. Further information brought by ar-1 rivals on the Taranaki was to the effect that bluejackets from tho Veronica, Dunedin, and Diomede were searching the ruins for the dead and injured, while* marines were patrolling the streets to prevent looting, but there was little, if any, of this. Also, it was reported that the racecourse at Napier Park was used as a receiving dep^it for the injured, and that cases were being conveyed by car to Dannovirko, PaJmerston, and Feilding. In the terrible circumstances the organisa-

tion of relief appeared to operate promptly in tho town, for committees for food supply, shelter, water, and communications were at work with astonishing quickness. The beach was scon to be black with people, and tents were soon put up as the fierce heat from the burning buildings would permit. Shakes continue. Tho danger to standing buildings in Napier and elsewhere in Hawkes Bay is apparently not yet over, as there was a severe shako and extensive falls of land at 11.15 on Thursday morning. Dust clouds were seen to rise all along the coast in tho neighbourhood , of Cape Kidnappers.