EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE TO HOSPITAL

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 128, 23 February 1939, Page 14

EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE TO HOSPITAL

£348 In Waipukurau board considers plans i FOR STRENGTHENING Dominion Special Service. WAIPUKURAU, February 22. The extent of the damage to Waipukurau district hospital, which is of brick construction, in the earthquake of December 15, was disclosed for the first time at today's meeting in Waipukurau of the Waipawa Hospital Board, when it was announced that the board’s insurance claim for damage resulting from that cause had now been paid. The amount of the claim was £348/16/6. x A. special meeting of the full board, not open to the Press, was held subsequently to discuss the board’s architects’ propoal for making the building earthquakeresisting as far as practicable. Fire prevention is also receiving attention, and the superintendent of the Waipukurau Fire Brigade, Mr. J. A. Chambers, was co-opted as a member of a special committee set up to consider measures in this direction. The buildings involved in the strengthening scheme will be the district hospital, ' Waipukurau, where plaster fell in wards during the December earthquake; the twostoried brick nurses’ home adjoining, which has been cracked, and the Rathbone’Maternity Home, Waipawa. * ; It was stated by the board’s architects that the buildings at the time of erection were very sound structurally, with no faults in architecture or workmanship, but since the earthquakes of 1931 a much more rigid code of regulations was being adopted in respect of earthquake resistance. . . X-Ray EquipmentHospital X-ray equipment to cost £1725 was authorized for purchase.