THE EARTHQUAKE

Hokitika Guardian, 13 March 1929, Page 3

THE EARTHQUAKE

AT ARTHUR’S PASS. DAMAGE TO HOADS. Serious damage has been done to ail roads in the district, and it is estimated that it will cost, thousands , of pounds to repair. At present it is quite impossible for vehicles to get to Arthur’s Pass hv road from either side. The road from the Bealcy is blocked by huge boulders, uprooted trees and debris, and it will, be some time before it will be open to traffic. Much more serious damage lias been done to tlie road over the Pass, and in some places it has been obliterated by land slips. A complete survey of the damage has not yet been possible, but it is tlie opinion of the engineers that it will he fully a month before it is restored. A BIG JOB Air Jack A’Court, tlie roadman at Arthur’s Pass, went up the road a distance of about four miles to-dav, and he states that it is almost impossible to get past at some places owing to the slips. The road is strewn with boulders and trees on the Arthur’s Pass side, and the work of clearing it will he a big job. There are also places where the fotmdaions have been loosened to such'an extent•that the road will be unsafe until careful repairs.- are made. The blockage, of the road will put a stop to the motor service trips over the Pass, which have lately been very popular with tourists. Canterbury motorists visiting the West Coast will require to track their cars from Springfield to Otira until the roads are clear again. In its present state, the road is quite impassable even to pedestrians. DEVIL’S PUNCH-BOWL. An interesting result of tlie earthquake is a change in the appearance of tlie Devil’s Punch-bowl, the well-known waterfall at Arthur’s Pass, At the top of the fall huge slips have cleared away much of the vegetation, leaving •muiit patches of mountainside where formerly there was magnificent hush. Mr A’Court described the appearance o! the waterfall during one of the severe shocks as l>eing like a terriev shaking a cat, the water being tossed about in a most extraordinary manner. CRACKS IN HILLSIDES. Although most of the fissures caused by the earthquake are in the made-up ground in the railway yard and the roads, there are several big cracks in the hillsides. Mr Cobergor is of opinion that the shocks were in waves from the north to south, and that the reason wli.v they were most severe at Arthur’s Pass was because it is on a rock foundation. It is a rather curious fact that articles on the shelves on the souther! side of the houses escaped more Tightly than those on the northern side. EXODUS FROM PASS! The first big shock- continued for about 50 seconds, after which there wa< a momentarily lull, followed by another s.iock lasting' nearly a minute. Tlie

second shock seemed worse than the first, as by that time all the lights were out. After that the.shocks came in waves at intervals of two or three minutes at first, the period between them increasing later. On Sunday afternoon just before three o'clock there was a ,:ai iicidarly severe shake and though it did not do any damage, il caused many of the residents who had j not left by the first relief train to | decide' to leave at the first opportunI ity. In response to their appeals, a second relief train left the pass about hall-past eight on Sunday night. Al- | together,' about sixty people have left Arthur’s Pass since Saturday, night, including every visitor and most ol the permanent residents. The (Silly men here to-night are the railwayworkers and a few of the permanent residents, and also a few men who have been sent up to carry out repairs to me railway property. REPAIR WORK. Mr W. T. Tregurtlia, outside assistant district traffic manager at Christchurch, arrived to-day. The electrical staff is at work to-night on the repairs to tlie overhead gear. Ballasting operations will be carried ■nut on the track to-morrow. Owing to tlie track having .subsided, the speed of trains was reduced to ten miles an hour from a point four miles from Arthur’s Pass. Very great relief is felt that the tunnel escaped damage altogether. A very close inspection was made today. and nothing was found to Im* amiss. There were no trains through the tunnel on Sunday, hut several railway officials came through from Otira. UNCANNY EXP HR I ENCE. ' One man was in the tunnel when tne big shock 1 was felt, and lie had ai; uncanny experience. There have been quite a number of shocks this afternoon and evening, hut none has been oi any severity. At Cora Lynn the morning, the chimney of the house o r Mr George Turner, surfaceman, top pled over, having been loosened oi. Saturday night.

A CONTRAST. SIXTY-SIN YEARS AOO. THE PASS DISCOVERED. A.rliur’s Pass, in 18(!A was a ver different place Irani the present little railway .settlement wliieli is already developing into a Lonrist and mountain.•c*rin<i resort and .lias its almost weekly invasion of excursion visitors. There

was no road, no Inline! with its network <J electric wiling, and. all the latest appliances known to modern transport. There was just the wild mountain valley with its hush-covered hills filled with the roar of a stream that had no name, and shadowed by a mountain that has since been called a I Lor one of our Canterbury pioneers. Mr Dobson walked into country that till then luid heard no language hut that of the native birds and knew no man except an occasional Maori who had abandoned his usual route between tlie two coasts. Mr A. I). Dobson, in an interview, told again the story of his discovery of Arthur’s Pass in ]BG3. Mr Dobson said he was engaged in a survey of tlie \\ est Coast at the time. He was surveying the coastline and the river as far as was possible with a party of j Maoris with canoes. He was surveying j every river up to the mountains as far as lie could get. but thought it would save a great deal of trouble if only they could get horses over to the Const and take a party of Englishmen also. The Maoris wore iust the men for the work, said Mr Dobson; they had been used to the rivers, and the bush and he spent six months with them alone. He came over to the East Coast through Harper’s Raddle with the intention of looking for a low pass further south whiyh would bring him out somewhere near Hokitika. Accordingly lie set out uj) the Wnimakariri country and soon saw that there must bo a low pass ahead up the 'river, which he called the Bealcy, They went over the pass as far as Otira. but found the (•reek bed too steep and the. scrub too toiek to take horses over without a road. The dogs oven had to ImV lowered down tlie steep. l bluffs ,anQ- they find to make ladders of poles and flax. They had to return, lvut took; two horses over the Harper Saddle, sliding tnem down the steeper shingle slides, riding them down the river flats, and swimming them through the gorges of the Tcromaknu down' to the sea.

- GREENSTONE ROUTE. route up the Teremakau, said L-Sr Dobson, was the way the Maoris 11 ways came for the greenstone in the Araiiura, which was the only place pure greenstone could be got. They •mild bring their canoes up to the Otira River junction. They carried flit* greenstone over to Lake Sumner, where they took to canoes again, and .vent down the Hiirimui to Kaiapoi or ..anginal. The Maoris, Mr Dobson said, bad known of this pass, but considered it very bad indeed, and always

. J preferred the northern route over Har- * : per’s Saddle. I FAULT IN THE ALPS. I i CAUSE OF DISTURBANCE. “The nature of the earthquake seems to suggest that it was due to a geological or subsidence fault in the j region of Arthur’s Pass and movement in the Southern Alps,” said Professor j R.. Speight, of Canterbury College when asked to ascribe a reason for the disturbance. The Professor added that tlie Alps were regarded as stable, hut more than once there had been evidence of movement within > them along me lines of fault; It was possibk that the Alps were :i cfintiuuation oi the lines of fault seen in the Kaikouras. Earthquake maps did not (ffnss ■ the Alps as being in the seismic area i but they undoubtedly were, for there had been regular occurrences of disturbances in them, even as far down as Te A.nan. Those mountains were crushed and faulted to a remarkable degree. It was sometimes- possible by exploration to find out where the disturbance originated. Faults in the Kaikouras were quite evident on tlie surface, particularly running across shingle fans, but that uliicli produced the movement on this occasion might never appear on the surface. Speaking of Otira tunnel, P.ofosvor Speight did not think it roinarkal/o that it had not been damaged to any extent. Earthquakes, : he said, were much more likely to produce damage j on the surface than under it. Dr. 0. C. Farr. Professor of i’liysios at Canterbury College, also stater that Hie cause of. Hie disturbance was doubtless a geological fault in the mountains near the Pass.