DESERTED

Hokitika Guardian, 4 July 1929, Page 3

DESERTED

EARTHQUAKE impressions j: V'.; » “OPEN HOUSE” IN MURCHISON. ; WELLINGTON, July 2. , The day following the big earthquake Mi’ F., W. Furkert, Under-Sec- , j’etary and Chief-Engineer of the Pub- . lie Works Department, visited the Murchison area. His impressions wterc given to a Rotary Club audience today, and those relating,to the hurried evacuation of the district were very, viyid. Washing was left on the lines in the backyards, lie said, and there was one house where a chimney-sweep was evidently about to clean the chimneys when the great shock came. He had untied his bundle of brushes and rods on the verandah and there the} remained, when Mr Furkert and a companion visted the deserted house two days later. The chimneys meanwhile had toppled. In many cases as ( it was a sunny morning when the /shock occurred and windows were open/etl for airing, they remained open after •the flight. He dul not come across a locked door and fires had been allowed to btirn themselves out. One of the most extraordinary cases avas where three bicycles were tied by a leg-rope to a s/ump out in the open, though there was a handy verandah/ They hod been soaked in the rain. ’’ ! He asked his hearers to imagine the violence of a shake which would turn pictures round faoe to the wall, but he assured them that this was frequently seen in deserted houses, which judging by the appearance of the wall r paper arid linoleum'had been wrenched sideways in the- most extraordinary manner. Floors were littered with crockery, and food was left when the people simply “)jt out” for somewhere, which was safe. He and his companion profited by this, as they were ablh to stay overnight at a deserted house the owner of which they had met oh the wav, and he told them where tb find a shoulder of mutton. They could not stay in this house, as it had a big lean, but took shelter overnight in a shed, thinking that even if it did collapse under the riumerous shocks it could not kill them.

LIKE A MAIN TRUNK TRIP

The sensations that night, continued Mr Furkert, were not at all nice, and what he was most*concerned about was that if it rained the slips would move. • and they would not be able to get back to. Murchison after making ah ineffectual;-attempt to reach Newton Flat, fix>m which there had been n{) news. Noises during the night were similar , to a . trip pn the main trunk, continuous 'ruriihling with an. .extra, shock now and then, srmilar to hitting the points on entering a station. A big shock came at;2.lu a.m. and; although they had found a clock going and had set the alarm for 6.30, they realised that no such alarm would be required to keep them awake. As for detonations, they were of two descriptions. One was similar to the sounds when explosives, were fired in a quarry, not the sharp shocks When small stones u;ere* being split, but the deejb rolling rumble which accompanied tbi fifing of a tori or so of in a shaft well into the eartn.

The detonations, strange Ho say, were not always accompanied by shocks. In the case of the big shock the detonation was right underneath them, but in other cases it seemed miles away.

AvS for the, size of the slips, Mr Furkert gave some Wellington comparisons to show how iiTurenso were the displaced masses.- He found that in the .Buller Gorge slips came from the very tops of hills, a thousand or even two thousand feet high and stretched down into the water, while some were a mile and a-half long.

QUICK WORK ON THE ROADS. “I am not here to defend the Goverhfnerit, 1 ’ concluded Mr Furkert, “bui here is what my Department did. Mi' Ensoll, assistant-engineer at Gowan bridge, could not communicate with his engineering chief, but within an hour and a-half of the big shake he had over a hundred men clearing slips on the road to Murchison, and he was the first man through, and he says you would have thought he wps Havelock coming to the relief of Lucknow. That day we had 333 men at work on the Westport-Ivanimea road and all oter the place. The day after the earthquake we had 409 men on the clearing of slips. * which looks as if the Government did something. The road from Grey-mouth to Westport waft opened in a couple of days, and the road from Murchison to Glenlmpe was opened in time to get the people out.”