SEEN FROM THE AIR.

DAMAGE ON THE EAST COAST. NAPIER-WAIROA SHORELINE. AFTERMATH OF EARTHQUAKE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) NAPIER, Wednesday. Extensive damage, hitherto unrepoited, along the coast between Napier and Wairoa, and on the Tarming and. Crown lands between those two centres, was revealed to the "Star" correspondent in the course of a trip by air over that country. Fissures, rifts, landslides, holes and other curious malformation are to be seen by the score. Many of them have occurred in places which are exceedingly difficult of access, and even from 1000 feet above the ground a fair number of them escape notice. After leaving Gisborne and travelling southwards, there is practically nothing out of the ordinary to arrest attention until Wairoa is reached. Apart from the shocking damage to the town itseif, there is extensive disruption along the coast in this locality. Several miles farther on —it is a matter of only a few minutes by .'plane —evidence of the greatest damage comes into view. Stretched out for miles, to the south straight ahead, to the west on the right, lies series after series of earth upheavals which have distorted the countryside, carrying away costly fencing and even farming land itself. _ The seashore, once a gracefully curving beach, has become a varied relief of small bays, separated by short capes thrust out into the water.

On either side of the mouth of the Mohaka River tremendous slips have crashed into the sea. Three are outstandingly extensive, though altogether there must be over a score of slides in which the top of the cliff has fallen away for 10 or 15 chains. The largest slip, just south of the mouth of the Mohaka, has already been reported by geologists as being of outstanding interest as far as the study of earth disturbance is concerned, being over 100 chains in length and 20 chains in width. It represents the sudden settling of an enormous section of a cliff which was between 500 and 600 feet high. A mile to the north of the Waikare River's estuary is a cliff subsidence which, in descending, lifted the floor of a valley to the level of a 50ft terrace, throwing up the water of the mouth of the stream in a gigantic wave which destroyed a woolshed and left the grass of nearby paddocks strewn with fish. Thrown Par Into Water It can quickly be seen how far into the water of the bay the earth and stones from these slides have, been thrown. While the shapes of many patches of sandstone and rock are clearly outlined beneath the surface of the water, it can be seen from the discoloration of the floor of the sea that fine dust and earth was shot out under the water as far as five chains beyond the edge of the slip after it had settled. Only a short dislance in from the coastline, hillsides have slid hundreds of feet to the bottom of a gully in many places. Seen from a high altitude, these slides, the surfaces of which are formed of parallel steps and trenches, have the appearance of tremendous heaps of dried porridge, and also call to mind the boiling mud pools of the thermal regions. Along the bed of the river itself —and also in many of the smaller streams which drain the district —there has been extensive shoaling, caused by the rise of the land at the mouth. The Mohaka, never a deep river even under nor. mal conditions, is practically dry at the mouth, and many other streams within a few miles of it are in a similar state. Damage to Roads.

Ruinous effects which have been suffered by the main highway and the secondary roads between Napier and Wairoa are plainly visible. The most noticeable of these is the large slip, nearly 20 chains in length, on the Mohaka cutting, where the road runs round the side of the hill, enclosing the large basin in which the township is built and from which the river reaches the sea. It is almost definite that it will be impossible to treat this, and many other similar slips on the road, before next summer. Repair work carried out now would almost certainly be wasted, for it is highly probable that there will be further slides near these shattered spots ,when wet weather sets in. Fortunately traffic is able to pass between Napier and Wairoa by using devious routes to avoid the slips—precarious crossings over the viaducts of the East Coast railway line have to be made in a number of localities—but many vehicles have already experienced difficulty on the roads, and a short shower of rain which fell a few days ago left- the surfaces in such a condition that those motorists who were fortunate enough to be carrying chains with them were compelled to affix them to the wheels. ■

Further damage, both superficial and deep-rooted, is seen nearer Petane and Westshore. Lagoons and streams have shoaled, cliffs have crushed into the sea. Hillsides have toppled into gullies, ridges have spread to either side of their crests. Along the whole route there jg abundant evidence of extensive earth movement, until one reaches Napier and Hastings, where the damage is too terribly visible to need further description.