HEAVY DAMAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 6 February 1931, Page 4

HEAVY DAMAGE

SOUTH OF WAIKOA. (By Telegraph.—Special to Gpaupian). GISBORNE. February 5. Aviators and motorists report very heavy damage between Wauoa and Napier, where the road, according to the Auckland Automobile Association Patrol, will he impassable for months thus cutting off communication with Gisborne from the south. The exciting experiences of Air ]!< 11 and a party of motorists in a service car, returning home from Napier on Tuesday morning are related. The parly wire m a service ear and had just passed over n bridge at the foot of Waikare Gorge, about 20 miles south of Wairoa, when the earth began to rock and shift within a few chains of a bridge there.- There is a torn in the road under an old slip here and in this tiny sanctuary the car was when the driver and passengers realised wha't was going forward. ALARMING SIGHTS.

According to one of the passengers, the walls of the Gorge appeared to approach each other overhead and from the banks near t'he ear boulders were thrown out as though by an explosion. Slips came tearing down the slopes, both in front of and behind the ear, and stones rattled on the hood. Mr Biggar, as passenger, who fold the story, mentioned that he had hardly alighted from the ear when he was struck by a tuneable rock, forturu ntel.v without injury, and that other passengers were also bombarded. The slips completely covered the road on both sides of the Gorge, and the only place in sight where the road surface could bo distinguished was the htile pocket in which the car was standing. Heaved round and under the machine were rocks of all sines. By some chance everything big seemed to have missed the car. and it was abandoned in quite a sound order.

The first thought of the occupants was to reach a place of safety, and it was to make the hillside to level ground, and above if was a stiff climb under ordinary circumstances. With the ground heaving and rocking it was amazingly difficult, especially as the party did not know but that any moment might see them hurled into the Gorge again. Reaching the top after the most strenuous exertions, they turned to observe the effect of the quake. They saw the hill all round them shuddering and landslides in motion everywhere. One area of nearly an acre in Air Reeve’s property across the Gorge was thrown into the air and daylight was seen underneath it by the amazed observers, who estimated that it must have been forced 30 feet or 40 feet clear of the surging area. Instead of breaking up, it whirled round and fell back into the hole from which it had been ejected, stones hurtling out of the mass as it fell. The scene beggared description. The force of the quake could not have been more apparent in the town of Napier, itself, so Mr Biggar claimed, The hotel at Waikare was found to be damaged, and the occupants were badlv startled, but they were no more startled than the party, of travellers who had escaped from the Gorge. AH Biggar later paid a visit to Mat abort so r Gorge, and there found the road obliterated, as it was in Waikare Gorge. Curiously enough two big railway viaducts had stood up. under the strain. The approaches to, the viaducts were crumbled, and the mils and sleepers left hanging in the mid-air, but the steel structures over the near-by gorges were intact, and were lrUoved by the workmen in charge of them to be undamaged, THRILLING EXPERIENCE, Among the most thrilling experiences of the earthquake period mufit have ranked that of some men who were, suspended on a staging from Alat»housm’ Gorge viaduct. They were engaged in painting the structure when the earthquake came. Their tale was one of their raging battle to retain their hold on the staging, which swung and buckled as the viaduct itself whipped this way or that. AVTTAT ATRAIEN SAW. Aviators on the way to Gisborne report that the fronts of the cliffs near Waikare and Alohaka have fallen into Rio sea. The latest observations were made to-day, by Captain Bolt, who reported on arrival that the cliffs Vlad he»n shattered and scattered a considerable distance out to sea.