PROPHECY BY GEOLOGIST

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26319, 13 January 1951, Page 6

PROPHECY BY GEOLOGIST

50-Year-Old Report

Recalled

DAMAGE AT CHEVIOT IN 1901 "The Preu" Special Service

DUNEDIN, January 12. Jne news of the earthquakes in Cheviot has recalled to a Dunedin resident, Mrs J. Lang, a prophecy made almost 50 years ago that the Cheviot area would not again be seriously disturbed by earthquake for 50 years. The prophecy was made by the Government Geologist at that time, Mr A. McKay, m his report on the violent earthquake of November 16, 1001. The earthquakes on Friday were the first with any serious effects in the township since 1901. .Mrs Lang has kept newspaper clippings and Mr McKay’s report. She lived in Cheviot in 1901 and was one of many who saw their homes destroyed. Within the district scarcely a chimney of any kind was left stand•ng and ail but one of the buildings built of brick, cob, or sun-dried brick were razed.

By all accounts the principal shock on November 16 was followed by a Sreat number of violent but lesser shocks that continued up to the beginning of 1902.

- Though th e first of the shocks was felt as far awav as Wellington and Dunedin, most of the damage was done between Kaikoura and Christchurch. At Cheviot only the wooden buildings remained standing, and many were shifted from their foundations. Roads and bridges in the district suffered considerably, and great bodies of rock fell from tKe sea cliff. Ruined Homes Although the exact time of the great earthquake was variously stated. It appeared to have been at 8.12 a.m. Some accounts said that It came without warning; others that it was preceded by a loud rumbling. All agreed that the air was still.

“Cheviot has been pouring its trouble into the sympathetic ear of the Minister for Public Works, the Hon. W. Hall-Jones,” said a report in “The Press,” Christchurch, on November 20, 1901. “He has been engaged in the task of inspecting ruined homes and battered dwellings. He has seen from the closest perspective the struggles of the mighty forces imprisoned underground to be free. He was told over and over again to-day of miraculous escapes, of mothers who had snatched their babies from amid the falling brick and escaped just in time to see their houses dashed to pieces. He was told of the number of families who had been half buried in debris and survived uninjured, of calamitous wrecks which had been caused on every hand, and of all the terrible events of Saturday.” The report said that most of the people at that time were living outdoors. Some of them had tents, others sheltered under hedges and hay stacks. Relief committees were formed, and public subscription lists were opened. Suggestions were also made in the newspapers that children from the district be invited to stay for a fortnight in homes in Christchurch to allow their parents to be free to repair some of the damage.