CHARMED LIVES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 112, 5 February 1931, Page 10

CHARMED LIVES

Babies from Napier MIRACULOUS ESCAPES A pathetic legacy from the disaster which has overtaken Napier arrived in Wellington yesterday in the form of nine babies, whose ages ranged from four months to eighteen months. These little tots, when the holocaust struck Napier, were cooing in their bassinettes in the sun outside the Salvation Army maternity home. Captain V. Delaney, children’s officer at the home, who, assisted by Lieutenant F. Durie and Miss S. Thompson, brought the babies from Napier by car yesterday, had a wonderful story to tell of the miraculous escape they had. “I was in the washhouse when the earthquake took place,” Captain Delaney explained, “and my first care was for the babies. I rushed out to where five ..of them were lying in the sun, and was horrified to see a brick chimney collapse and fall down among them. I expected, to find some of them dead, as some of the bricks and debris fell right into the bassinettes. Providentially, not one of the little mites was injured. The rest of the children in the home,, six in all, were also uninjured, and we hurriedly took the eleven of them to a place of safety. There were also two or three maternity patients in the home, and they also were unharmed. ■ Captain Delaney left Napier with her little charges by motor-car at 2 o’clock on Wednesday morning, and arrived at the Salvation Army Home in Kensington Street about 1.30 p.m. yesterday. From a glance at the picture in this morning s “Dominion” no one would imagine that the babies had been through such a terrifying experience. “They did not realise the seriousness of it, and perhaps it is just as well,” remarked Captain Delaney. . . t _ The matron of the Napier home, Commandant Weeding, remained to render assistance to the injured and homeless, INSURANCE POSITION Payment on Fires SPECIFIC COVER REQUIRED Property-owners have no legal claim on insurance companies, unless they are specificially covered for earthquake risk—fire, consequent upon _ an earthquakeeven though such loss is the result of the spread of the fire, and not directly arising out of an earthquake, according to an authority consulted yesterday. That, it was stated, had been established in test cases. It was pointed out that that was not necessarily the attitude that companies would take, as it was on record that in disasters similar to that which had overtaken Hawke’s Bay, some British companies had paid out on ordinary fire policies. It would be for the New Zealand Underwriters’ Association to determine what course would be pursued in this instance. ■ • It is understood that during the last two days local insurance companies have been kept busy supplying information as to earthquake insurance to possible clients.