EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 267, 20 November 1901, Page 2

EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS.

By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, last night. A number of shocks occurred at Cheviot last night after the heavy convulsions at eight o’clock, which caused a mild panic. Up to 11 this morning there had been no tremors to day. The Hon. air Hall-Jones left this morning for Cheviot, and Sir Joseph Ward is expected to arrive there at daylight tomorrow. Wellington, yesterday. The postmaster at Cheviot telegraphed to the Secrotary of tiie Department at 8 a.m. this morning, and says : “ I have to report another depressing night. Since my last there have been a number of minor disturbances, intermingled with one or two more severe and serious shocks. None has done any additional damage, chiefly because practically all the damage from which the settlement can sutler has dready been doue. : “ I regret to say that, after the promise of much-needed cooling rain last night, 1 1 tko weather has again changed this morning, and is oppressively close, with a scorching sun. This will add to the troubles of the farmers, whose land is parched, and crops are consequently in nearly all cases failures. “ Christchurch newspapers have already started a relief fund. It must not be understood, however, that the settlers are destitute. Almost without exception their houses are badly damaged, and in some cases destroyed, while one or two business people in McKenzie itself who have no available capital have lost their all. It is these latter wilt' will benefit by the relief fund, the chief use of which will not be to buy food, but to enable them to make another start. The impressiou aboard that the people are absolutely destitute is incorrect, though several have been ruined.” The Government are sending Mr McKay, the Geologist attached to the Mines Department, to Cheviot to report on the scientific aspect of the disturbance. CONTINUATION OF SHOCKS. 1 SHARP SHOCK YESTERDAY AFTERNOON.

(By Telograph—Pross Association.) Christchurch, 9.25 last night. The earthquake at 7.50 on Monday night, which caused further approhension at Cheviot, was felt at Waiau, and was considered to be the most severo since Saturday morning. The shock very much upset the women folk, some of whom had not had their clothes off since Saturday morning. At fivo minutes to eleven there was another shock, and at 2.20 n.m. there was a third, which caused commotion in the hotel. At about seven o'clock there was another, but slighter, quake, and during the rest of tho morning there was quietness. At 4.5 this afternoon a sharp shock was felt at Waikari. Belief funds for the Cheviot sufferers have been started, and already a considerable sum lias been collected. A movement is on foot to provide temporary accommodation here for women and children whose homes have been destroyed, and a number of bonelit entertainments will bo given. MESSAGE FROM CHEVIOT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) Wellington, last night. The postmaster at Cheviot wired to the Secretary of the Department at 2 p.m. : “No further shocks. There is a hard gale blowing,”

GENERAL ITEMS.

! Special to Times.) Christchurch, last night.

The Christchurch journals give graphic descriptions of the scenes. One writer thus describes the effects: —“ Very terrible scenes have occurred. On Saturday morning the first shock struck the township without warning. It killed a child and injured a number of others. It throw a dead man out of bis coffin on to tho floor of the room in which the body was resting ; it devastated buildings und threw brick chimneys like matchboxes across backyards and garden plots; it smashed houses into splinters ; it threw a heavy iron safe across a ten-foot offico, and it terrified helpless women and children into insensibility. Down near the harbor this Herculean force piled up a great monument. By its Titanic onergy it hurled millions of feet of rock from tho high bluffs above to the road below, burying it forty feet deep in debris and sending the overflow down into the sea.”

A very loud report was heard at Hanmer on Friday. The earthquake displaced several monuments. At Waiau cemetery the largo granite obelisk to the memory of the late Mr Rutherford, senr., was much shaken. Those on board tho Elingamite, about twenty miles from the Lyttelton Heads, felt the shock, and described it as if caused by striking a rock. One correspondent states that at Cheviot people wore thrown down suddenly while walking in tho streets, and in a number of cases persons were flung from their beds into the middle of the room. Pandemonium reigned, the women shrieked and the children cried.

A baby was left in a perambulator outside a house for a few minutes; on tho mother returning she found the perambulator half full of chimney bricks, but the baby was safe. At the Cheviot Nows office the heavy printer’s stone, which it takes three men to lift, was thrown across tho room. The press was lifted up bodily, and its legs stuck through a forme of type. At Dock Creek, on the road from Waiau to Lyttelton, a wide fissure five chains in length opened out. As a photographer was taking a view of the hotel at Waiau another shock occurred, and photographer and camera fell.

Mr R. Meredith, M.H.R., states that in company with another he was sitting in the Waiau hotel. They heard a very loud rumbling, immediately followed by the first shock. Both gentlemen ran for the door, but found it jatnbed, and only by a strong effort they managed to wrench it open and escape. The chimneys had come down, bricks from the kitchen chimney crashing through the roof and some bounding out through the windows. At the time they fell there were five persons in the kitchen. The kitchen was wrecked, and the dining-room and other parts of tho house damaged by falling bricks.

At the Christchurch railway station a large concrete tank was violently agitated ; ten minutes after the main shock the water was splashing over the side 3 in a two-inch stream.

Johnston’s house, in which the child was killed, is on the AVaiau road, below tho level of the road. The walls were of clay, about two feet thick and about nine feet high, and it had an iron roof. At the Hanmer Springs there is a dark sediment in the water.

Tho shock caused a train at Amberley station (while the engine was away obtaining water) to move on : several passengers near tho station toppled over, and consternation prevailed. The captain of the steamer Kelburn, lying at one of the Lyttelton wharves, was in hi 3 cabin writing. Feeling the ship bumping as if another ship was colliding with her, he rushed on deck, to see the railway trucks on the wharf bumping into one another, and the electric light posts swinging to and fro. A Cheviot resident stated to a reporter : —“ I was getting dressed in my whore, situated on a rise about a mile from McKenzie township. My clock fell off the shelf, and on iny picking it up the main stiock came with terrific force, accompanied by a loud roar, which appeared to come from the bowels of the earth. My sod chimney was dashed to the ground, and the birdcages hanging outside were shaken off the hooks. I immediately went outside, and the sight that met my gaze was peculiar, Ifhe next-door neighbor’s chiupneys were both down, and on looking on McKenzie township from my elevated position on the hill I could not see one chimney standing. The whole valley was enveloped in clouds of dust, the wavy motion giving the valley the appearance of a huge carpet being shaken, and the clouds of dust rising therefrom.

Along the road in front of me au old man was bringing in the cows. I saw him fall to the ground, and no sooner did he regain his feet than he was down flat again, f could see the people down at the township running here and there, and horses rushing about the place.”