LATE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 225, 19 June 1929, Page 6

LATE NEWS

VISIT TO MURCHISON “NOT LANDSLIDES, BUT ERUPTIONS” COUNTRYSIDE A WILDERNESS ■, ■ i Dominion Special Service. Nelson, June 18. Yesterday’s earthquake at Murchison was undoubtedly the most terriffic occurence of the kind within the record of human experience in New Zealand. Even a brief visit to the stricken district is sufficient to reveal this. . From the Owen Junction, fifteen miles on the Nelson side of Murchison, into the township the whole countryside is shattered and riven. Slips are everywhere to be seen oh the hillsides. The edges of the river terraces have fallen away. • The road itself is cracked and fissured, and innumerable slips have fallen across it. In the neighbourhood of Grassy the range to the north of the road is practically shattered, great faces of rock being exposed over a distance of a mile or more where before the cataclysm was solid bush. The peaks around the Owen Hotel are split in all directions, scars .covering, the greater part of their summits and sides. New Concrete Bridge Down. •The new concrete bridge across Doctor’s Creek is down, the solid slab that formed the traffic way standing on end. The bridge across the . Buller River before Murchison is reached stands intact, but parts of the roadway bordering the river as one approaches Murchison have fallen.clean away and traffic, has to take to the neighbouring 'paddocks. Nearing the town signs of damage are seen in practically, every building. Dwelling houses are leaning awry, tipped to one side and turned on their foundations in numbers of eases. Chimneys naturally are down' almost everywhere, but whereas elsewhere chimneys have simply fallen on to the adjacent roof or ground, at Murchison Post Office the top of the chimney was hurled dean across the roof and fell on the ground on the «ther side of the building. The most striking wreck in the town is Messrs. Hodgson’s store, a. concrete structure, which is leaning sideways at an angle of approximately 45 degrees, the ground story being at one angle and the upstairs at another. /A reliable witness, Mr. E. B. Spiers, states that in his opinion Hodgson’s store hit the ground twice and was finally left in the position described. This sounds incredible, but when one hears of other experiences, anything seems creditable. A Hospital Experience.

Mr. Pointon, of Maruia, for instance, was visiting his wife in hospital at the time of the shake. He states that he was getting on a chair when it began. He does not know what became of_ the chair, but he found himself on the floor, hanging on to the legs of the bedstead. He was violently thrown from side to side of the room, as the building heaved first in one direction then the other. The schoolrchildren had a miraculous escape, a chimney descending into the window as the last child left the building. Easels were thrown on top of desks, the mantelpiece was dislodged from the _w a ‘l> the contents of cupboards were shot bolus bolus across the floor, and heavy cupboards tipped forward from the wall. The interior of the post office is in similar chaos, and the contents of private houses much as one might expect to find them if the whole building had been tossed bodily into the air. . ... At Murchison the upheaval is described not as an earthquake, but as an eruption, and the appearance of the surrounding hills certainly gives the impression that they have burst asunder by an upheaval from below rather than that slips have been shaken off their sides.. The Matakitaki River, which joins the Buller at Murchison, is completely blocked bv an enormous mass of debris about a mile long by three-quarters of a mile in width. The river is banking up in a lake behind it. The Maruia is similarly blocked in three places a few miles up from its junction from the Buller, and the Buller itself has a slip across it near Sullivan’s Bridge, eight miles below Mua--0 was only possible for your correspondent in the available, time this afternoon to visit the Matakitaki slip. The scene "here is almost indescribable. Bunning up the Matakitaki road one sees on the far side of the valley the whole face of the range gone, and then approaching to the edge of the terrace opposite this the whole floor of the valley for nearly a square mile is one great tract of shattered rock, mud and debris of all sorts. It was here that four of the six persons lost in the disaster perished. At one point the upper story of the late Mr. C. Morel’s residence is seen above the tumbled debris a quarter of a mile dsitant from its original position. A lump of rock is pointed on the far side of the valley as roughly indicating the spot at which the farmhouse of Mr. Bush stood and far below which it now lies with the bodies of Mrs. Bush, Miss Bush, and Mr. Bush, juh. It is stated that the mountainside here was literally projected or erupted outwards across the valley, forcing the water and mud out of the river bed to the foot of the high level terrace half a mile away. Standing on this upper terrace to-day it was difficult to realise that the wilderness before • one had on Monday morning been an expanse of fertile river meadows. “Up and Down Motion.” Elsewhere Monday’s earthquake was felt as a swaying motion, but in Murchison the movement is described as having been violently up and down. Mr. Fraser, the county clerk, says that he heard a loud rumbling in the ranges at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning, and residents of the Maruia some weeks ago remarked on a noise as if a motor-lorry was approaching up the valley when no motor-lorry was about. Various reports are afloat at Murchison as to fire and glow having been seen high on the ranges, and there is,a very general belief among residents that the occurrence is much more in the nature of an eruption than an earthquake. Following the main shake the reverberations continued all Monday and through most of to-day, the disturbances gradually easing off last evening. The noise is described as having been like a continuous subterranean thunderstorm, but much louder than thunder. Explosions on Monday Night. One observer, Mr. Spencer, is said to have timed ten explosions on Monday night and to have found that they occurred at intervals of 4$ minutes. Last evening ten booms of these explosions were still continuing, though not at such frequent intervals and were accompanied by shakes. While great heroism was shown on all sides the residents owe much to the untiring labours of Mr. F. B. Spiers. Mr. Spiers first established communication with the outside world by going up to Glenhope on Monday. His son later in the day got through with the message that the Buller River was blocked, and yesterday Mr. Spiers, Sen., had practically the whole of the male residents out clearing the slips off the road. As soon as this work was completed all who wished to leave were sent away to Nelson, and last evening, when your correspondent left Murchison, some fifty men and fewer women remained in the township out of a total population of three hundred odd. The cars and lorries and what-not bearing away the exodus were encountered on the road, and the faces of the fleeing popnation bore witness to the terrible ordeal through which they had passed. On the return journey to Nelson tonight the vehicles were met returning to Murchison and bearing back menfolk who

had taken their women and children to less disturbed territory, and were themselves returning to their homes.

’QUAKES DECREASING

The Acting-Secretary of the G.P.O. has received the following message from the chief postmaster, Westport; “Latest report from Buller Gorge cars should be able to reach Reefton within one week. Nelson route is stated to be in very bad condition. It will be probably some weeks before the road is open. The quakes are now decreasing in frequency and severity. ’ SHOCKS AT TAKAKA The Acting-Secretary of the G.P.O. has received the following information from the postmaster at Takaka:—“Fortythree shocks were experienced at Takaka between midnight and 3 a.m., and continued at frequent intervals throughout the day, showing no signs of abatement. Considerable damage was experienced throughout the district. SHAKE IN WELLINGTON .THIS MORNING Another slight earthquake was felt in Wellington at 1.26 this morning.