AT KARAMEA

Hokitika Guardian, 10 July 1929, Page 6

AT KARAMEA

A TIME OF TERROR. AN INTERESTING NARRATIVE. In the course of an interview at Christchurch on his arrival from Karamea on Saturday night, Mr G. N. Hawken, secretary of the Karamea Dairy Company and Karamea Shipping Company gave some particulars of his experiences' at the time of the big ’quake. WHEN THE ’QUAKE CAME. “1 was seated in my office at the dairy factory, working on butter-fat calculations,-when, about 10.20 a.m. I heard' a.vpeculiitl. rumbling noise and the next second hiy office started rocking like a boat at sea. Out went the brick chimney into the paddock, carrying the fireplace with it. The shaking continued for a considerable time, and files, books, rulers and ink-wells were flying about me, until I could stand it no longer, and ran out of the office. “ Jumping into my car, I started for home, as my first thought was of my wife and children. After going twentyyards, I was stopped by a man, who told me I couldn’t get over the bridges, so 1 ran for my life, jumping huge fissures in the road, from which wore belching sulphur fumes enough to choke one.

“ How I got home I couldn’t toll. Going in the front gate, I stepped over a crack in the • garden path two feet wide and feur feet deep. The double brick chimney had; cracked off and had nearly gone through the roof. Two 400-gallon galvanised iron tanks had crumpled up like - tissue paper. I could not find.: my family!

A TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE. “ I found them eventually terrorstricken in a neighbour’s back-yard. My wife had an eleven-months’-old baby in the hath when the ’quake came. She grabbed him and had to,run for her life. Our neighbours covered the little hoy with a rug, and all the time he smiled at us all, thinking it a fine joke. Our little girl, two years and three-quarters, old,' was panicstricken and was crying. “ All the time, heavy ’quakes were continuing. Hills were tumbling down.; like packs of card's, approaches to bridges dropped four feet and the ends of the bridges themselves dropped, making a curve. Geysers were spouting all over tlih place, and driftwood, which had been buried for years, was pushed up through paddocks. Sand also came up in heaps. 'A lorry driver. wh.ilei"atteriipting to get home, liad his vehicle wrecked under him. The chassis was twisted like a piece of paper and the front seats were crushed back under' the driver’s seat. “ There were some miraculous escapes. Perhaps the most wonderful of all was that of the mail car, which usually leaves Westport at 9 a.m. for Karamea. On the fateful day. the ear was delayed for an.hour and. a half. Had it been running to time, it would have just reached Karamea Bluff, about . 1500 feet above, sea level. I shudder to think what would have happened. The car would have been buried and would never have been found in the. huge landslide that filled a valley..

TRUCK BURIED. .. ‘‘ Another escape was ■ that of a Fort! lorry, which stalled twenty yards from where, five minutes later, a hillside eo' lapsed, bringing down thousands o tons of debris. > At. the wharf, a bi£ lorry was proceeding to the timbo’ stacks when the ground opened up. It was buried to the decking in a crevice four feet deep, seven feet wide, and as long as the eye could see.

“ Karamea wharf was twisted like a plaything. Huge piles, two feet square, were knocked out towards the sea like,-skittles, and the whole wharf sank about four feet.into the river. Two large timber skids, with 50,000 feet of timber on them, collapsed, the tide , taking all the timber out to sea,. The huge training-wall, upon which £23,000 has been' spent up to the present, has now .a .list, to seaward and is badly buckled. All this money is now wasted.

“ Little loss was suffered at the dairy, factory., where we make 220. tons of butter a year. The manager had the machinery running again two days after the big ’quake. The new cool chamber, in which some 400 boxes of butter were stored, was in a terrible mess. Tbe ’quake disconnected the ammonia pipes and threw the boxes all over the room, while the tanks at each side splashed gallons of water over the butter, causing about £IOO worth of damage.

IN CAMP. “After .the big ’quake.at Karamea. smalier ones occurred continuously day and night up to the time we left The day after tile ’quake, 1, together with four other families, decided to take my family to higher ground, as a flood yas imminent owing to the river being blocked by landslides eight miles up-river.’ We were the guests of the Public, Works overseer at a little encampment called Red Town. This consisted of seven regulation huts. We slept at the foreman’s cottage which was adjacent. Twenty qf us slept for ten days in our clothes, only taking our bents off. Wo all slept in one big field bed, men, woman and children. “ The day before arriving at this camp, diphtheria broke out at a neaiby camp. Our panic at this can he imagined. The children had all been, playing together on the previous day.

Anyhow, kerosene and sugar gargle parade was rigorously carried out and we escaped. Three days after, however, another case broke out in Karamea, three miles away. The doctor told me that the serum was all gone, but two days later a fresh supply came by aeroplane. Had an epidemic broken out, heaven knows what would have happened. “We have endured sleepless nights, cyclones, rain, snow, hailstorms,’ thunder and lightning, and a flood, so it can be imagined what our nerves are like. We jump at the slightest noise. My little girl, on seeing a tramcar at the Christchurch railway station, said: ‘ Oli', daddy, that house is going! ’ meaning that the ’quake had got it.

ISOLATED. “The people of Murchison were lucky—they could flee into Nelson—but tell me where could we go? We were hemmed in like rats in a trap, with mountainous slips for seventeen miles. This seventeen miles takes a strong man three days to get over. Wo had this on one side, and on the other side we had the sea. No boat in this world could get over the treacherous bar with its mountainous seas Tiy to compare our plight with that of any other stricken area. Hundred’?, if not thousands, know not the nliglit of Karamea unless they have viVtecl it. It is the most isolated spot :, i New Zealand. I venture to say, and there are 800 people in Karamea to back me, that had Westport or any other town had the shake that Karamea received, there would have been nothing left standing. What saved Karamea was the fact that all. the buildings, are of wood with iron roofs. There is hardly a brick chimney or a galvanised iron roof left standing. “ Just try to imagine what you would feel like being isolated at such a- time.- We never knew if the rest off the world had escaped or if it had all perished. For four days and a half, the only news we received was the scanty messages over the throe wireless sets in the district. It was awful to see the worried look everyone had on their faces.

ARRIVAL OF ’PLANE. “ On the Friday after the big ’quake an aeroplane arrived from Westport to see if anyone was left to tell the t; le. Four days and a-half had elapsed before this happened. Just fancy, it is only forty minutes by aeroplane from Westport to Karamea. The earthquake came at 10.17 on Monday mo’ ii ing, and it was not until the Friday after that the Moth aeroplane came with a small mail and half a do? in Westport papers. Yet it arrived m Westport the Tuesday after the ’quake, bringing a transmitting , el and operator. ; ‘ As I say, the aeroplane came i.n the Friday and again on the Satuiday. and then, lo and behold, it until Monday, July 1, when the sc 1 tiers were Having a protest' mtotin ■ in Karamea Hall. Nine cbys wit) out news of our friends or any of ms being able to send any message a' all Is this a : civilised world? Vo were nearly mad for news off our dear ones, and that is the. way we were, thought of. ‘ There was only one house burnt down up to the day before "n lei.', when we heard that another had t**.n burned that night. This wis iot owing to the earthquake, but a fire' in the chimney. There we'3 vo houses turned over.

“The damage to property in Karamea is heartbreaking to see. Homes are broken into three pieces in some cases, and others are leaning over at all angles. The damage will amount to several thousands. There are over seventy- motor-cars of all the latest makes, and these will be practically usi less now, except for a radius of m out fourteen miles.

“ Sir Joseph Ward’s action in chartering the little Nile was a great help to the district. The day before the Nile arrived, the aeroplane brought an •’p-to-date transmitting set, and the operator worked strenuously, sending about 300 telegrams to all parts of the world. The inhabitants are very grateful for all the Government lias done and has promised to do for them. “The chief request of the people of Karamea is for a road round the coast to connect with Westport and the outside world. A steamer service would be all right in fine weather, but in bad weather nothing can cross the bar for three weeks or more.”