STRANGE EFFECTS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 32, 7 February 1931, Page 14

STRANGE EFFECTS

WALLS GONE, SHELVES EI|LL

In quite a number of cases-walls of two-storied brick buildings were shaken down on all four sides, but the light wooden partitions still held the roof almost intact. That, is the case at the Taradalc hotel, where every room is open and still contains its furniture, with the roof, unbroken, above. One man was killed in the doorway as he,rushed out, but the proprietor remained inside and jumped from the upper floor, unhurt, after the shake. The walls, of the Empire Hotel, .Napier, were ripped clear, but the interior walling and, furnishing remains; even the pictures are still on the walls. A Much more remarkable is a big store at Hastings; There the four walls crashed clown, leaving the partitions supporting tho upper floor, and on this floor are standing the shelves which lined the outer' walls, s and on them, as if they had been carefully relaced after the shake, are rows of tins and bottled goods. A gust of wind may empty the shelves, but 'the heaviest earthquake that the' North Island has known for many years did not'inove them. ■'■ • f < ■'..■: At Hastings there' Were many cases of the bursting ; outwards of all four walls simultaneously, the roof crashing down between them to the grouiid. No similar case was noticed in Napier. In Napier South a power pole carrying an oil-filled control swung so far out over the roadway that/the oil was thrown to the. further side of the water. table; now the. pole is leaning down almost to the ground in the opposite direction. Hanging electric light fittings were in many homes smashed against vthe ceilings, so violent was the, movement.