EARTHQUAKE RISKS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 4, 20 January 1937, Page 6

EARTHQUAKE RISKS.

Ever sinca tke Hawke's Bay diaaster of 1931 eeismologists and engineers have been trying to arouse the Governmefit afid the people of New Zealand to the need for more adequate measufes to iiiiitiniiae the danger to life and property from earthquakes. In 1932 an ©fficial committee set up to read the lessoiia 6f the Hawke'a Bay earthquake repbrted that no pati Of New Zealand could be considered immune from . tke risk of severe earthquakes, but that the riak of damage could be greatly reduced by tke adoption of Cfeftain pfecautiOns irL building coustruction and by tke reihoval Of overkanging cornices from existing buildings: Tke Coalition Government thOreupon bxought down a Building CoustruOtion Siil fxamed to give effeet to the cominittee^s tecommendatibns. Tke Christchurch ' 'Press' ' makes eome pertinent comment upon tke situation as it is now. After protracted negotiatidns with builidng interests the- Building Gonstruction Biil waS Withdrawii, says the "Press," and the Government announced that the task of framing a code of building fegulations had bOen delegated to tke Standards Institute. Asked wkether the code would be enforced throughdut the country, the Prime Minister, the Et. Hon. Gi W. Fofbes,, WaS suspiciOUsly evasive; loeal bodies, he explained, would be asked to adopt it, and should many of them fail to do so the question of eoaapulsion Uiight be considered. Since the Standards Institute was at this time little more than a name it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this procedure waS adopted as a meAns of shelving an awkward problem. After two yeaxs the institute has produced a building code of sorts; but in the itteautime there has been a change of government and for some mOnths the subject has been in abeyance. The two papers on the seismology of New Zealand read at the Science Congress in Auckland last week are therefore opportune. One of them is by the acting-Dominion Seismologist, Mr, R. C. Hayes, who isSUOs a waming that districtS which do not expexienCO frequent minor tremors are not necessarily immune ffom earthquakes, Minor tremors, he says, frequeiitly act as saiety valves in relieving the stresses which are continually being built up. Mr. Hayes mentions Auckland as a distriet which has had at least one violent earthquake and may have another, although in recent years it has been immune from tremors. The Other paper is by Dr. L. Hastings, who says bluntly that New Zealanders are living in a f Ool 'a paradise, that the building code prepared by the Standards Institute is "far from satisfactory," and that New Zealand experienees mOre violent earthquakes for its area than Japan does. It must be hoped that these warnings will be brought formally to the notice of the Government. The Hawke's Bay earthquake cOst the country 260 lives and millions of pounds worth of property. In the six years that have elapsed since th.en no government has done anythittg to minimise earthquake risks. Although an additional expenditure of only about 6 per cent. is required to make buildings reasonably safe against earthquakes, hundreds of buildings have been erected since 1931 which would be death traps in a severe shoek. The "Press*' concludes with the comment that | either New Zealanders are callous or they are criminally careless. j