WHEN LYTTELTON HARBOUR RAN DRY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3841, 6 September 1928, Page 1

WHEN LYTTELTON HARBOUR RAN DRY.

EXTRAORDINARY EFFECTS OF AN OLD-TIME CONVULSION ' An occurrence which has long been forgotten, but which deserves to rank with memorable events in the country’s history, is resuscitated in the Christchurch Star’s reprints of news published in its columns 60 years ago. The item is as follows: — “The town of Lyttelton was this morning thrown into a state of the greatest excitement owing to a most extraordinary convulsion of Nature. At present it is impossible to say what it is, whether a submarine eruption or a tidal wave; but the damage done to the vessels is considerable. We learn the following particulars from Mr. Webb, nightwatchman on the railway. He states that at four this morning, on going his rounds, he noticed that the barque John Knox was lying on her starboard broadside, and her yards were nearly touching the screwpile jetty, alongside which she was discharging her cargo. He immediately gavel the alarm, and aroused Captain Jenkins, who came on deck. He thought the coals in the vessel had shifted, but on looking over the side he saw that the harbour, from the wharf to Officers’ Point, was quite dry, and that all the boats and vessels were and dry. He called Webb’s attention to this, and it was a fact that the harbour was empty. In a few minutes their attention was directed to a noise resembling thunder, coming from off Officers’ Point. On looking they saw an immense wave coming along the harbour with fearful velocity, and in a few minutes it was surging round the vessels, tearing them from the different wharves and breaking the warps like twine. It caught the barque John Knox and drove her against the screwpile jetty, carrying away her starboard quarter, and snapping her mooring chain and hawsers which held her to the wharf. The ketch Margaret, lying on the beach, had her warps carried away. The wave caught her on the rebound, and she was carried into' the harbour, fouling the Annie Brown, schooner, and carrying away her bulwarks, stanchions and mast, and doing damage to the schooners; she is in a sad state. The schooner Jeannie Duncan, lying at the Railway Wharf, received serious damage; the Novelty, steamer, lying alongside of her, carried away by collision her bulwarks and stanchions from fore to main rigging, and her boat is broken in half.”