EARTHQUAKES OF 1996.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8338, 22 January 1907, Page 5

EARTHQUAKES OF 1996.

COMPARED WITHIPREVIOUS YEARS. The impression that from the earthquake point of view 2906 was worse than 1905 is not borne out by Mr G. Hogben, who is the earthquake expert for the North Island, and looks after the Milne seismograph, which is located" at his house in Tinakori |Road, Wellington. As far as the number of earthquakes is concerned, he said to a Post reporter, 1906 was not an extraordinary year, but the point to be borne in mind is that two of the bigger earthquakesSan Francisco and Santiago—were in the neighbourhood of big cities, although the earthquakes themselves were not very big. It must also be borne in mind that as the science of earthquakes grows, a knowledge of it spreads among the general public through newspapers and magazines, and more interest is taken in the subject. As a matter of fact there were less considerable earthquakes in 1906 than in 1905 40, as compared with 48 —and in 1905 there were quakes much bigger than anything in 1906. For instance, there were two in Siberia, and the big one in. India,'but they did not occur near the big cities. And to go back a little way, none of them compared with the big one at Guatemala in 1902, which destroyed forty towns . and in , which , about 3,000 people perished. •',' The Charleston earthquake in August, 1886, was very much bigger than that at San Francisco, but the damage done, remarked Mr Hogben, was not so great because they stopped the fires. The interesting feature about the Charleston earthquake was that it gave a stimulus to the building of steel frame buildwhich, even in their then incipient jstages, stood the remarkably well. The fire in Charleston was stopped in two ways. One method was the utilisation ,of the firewells, which were still retained after the inauguration of the new water supply, and in the second place the new water mains were laid chiefly in permanent ground and only suffered a small amount of damage, which could soon be repaired. Thd consequence was that the firemen, sailors, and soldiers got the fires under in less .than threehoura. Turning again to the record for last year, Mr Hogben remarked that the biggest earthquake was that.in Chili, following which came gthoss a,t Formosa, Calabria, January 31st, and San Francisco, April 17th. None of those were of the most destructive order, and as a matter of fact the San Francisco quake was not as bad as that experienced in Wellington in 1904. The difference was that at San Francisco the centre was within about 15 miles of the city, and at Wellington it was some'2oo miles away. Other big earthquakes during the past year were at Palmero on September 14th, and a series of quakes in the Indian Ocean, some 500 or 600 miles north-west of PerthW.A M -in August, October and No, vember.