IN OTHER CENTRES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 June 1942, Page 3

IN OTHER CENTRES

SURVEY OF WELLINGTON AREAS 36 BUILDINGS IN CITY BADLY AFFECTED.' MAJOR STRUCTURAL REPAIRS REQUIRED. i (By 1 Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A survey of the city and suburban areas of Wellington yesterday disclosed damage which, in the aggregate, will cost many thousands of pounds to repair. There is also the problem of getting labour and materials for the work. At present it appears that the householders whose chimneys have been demolished will be seriously inconvenienced for some considerable time as many complained yesterday of the impossibility of getting the services of bricklayers. It was stated that most of these skilled tradesmen were engaged on urgent State works. The building inspector had already reported that there were 36 Wellington buildings requiring major structural < repairs and a few hundred requiring minor repairs, said the city engineer, Mr K. Luke. The commercial area, was being thoroughly inspected and owners of affected buildings would be required to have structural repairs carried out urgently and also to remove parapets and other dangerous projections. Earthquake damage is reported from all quarters of the Paraparaumu district Scores of houses have lost at least one chimney and in some cases three and four have collapsed. Many windows were broken and dozens of tanks were either burst and so shaken that they started to leak. In other cases the tanks were wrenched away from their pipe connections. Township and beach storekeepers ■suffered considerable loss, stock being hurled from shelves and either broken or spoiled. In one case barrow loads of ruined stock had to be removed before anything like order could be restored.

PALMERSTON NORTH CONSIDERABLE MINOR DAMAGE. OTHER MANAWATU TOWNS FARE SIMILARLY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) PALMERSTON N, June 25. In Palmerston North chimneys were razed or cracked, tilings ripped from roofs, water pipes broken, plate-glass windows smashed, power lines snapped, telephone communications interrupted, and shops’ stocks swept from the shelves on to the floors, while dazzling electrical flashes, due to high tension lines touching, pierced the sky. In the city considerable damage; was done. A brick-built depot collapsed outward, bricks and rubble falling on tents where guards were sleeping. No one was injured. A. tractor in a display window in a Rangitikei Street premises crashed through a plate-glass window. Substantial damage occurred _at Bunny thorpe, Levin and Feilding. Buildings were wrenched and cracked, several parapets crashing in Feilding.

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