MERITS OF HONEST CONCRETE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 58, 12 March 1929, Page 10

MERITS OF HONEST CONCRETE

All reports to date concerning the Alpine earthquake assert that the Otira tunnel is not damaged. It happens that the man-made five-miles hole in the hill has undergone this wrench just about the time when judgment was boing delivered in an official quarter on another of the liberties that man takes with Nature—the big dam on the Waikato at Arapuni. In making the report that most people expected him to make on the safety of the dam, the Minister of Public Works had not at hand the evidence of a first-class earthquake, but as the fact that Arapuni is considered to be in an earthquake zone

has figured in the dam argument, the apparent immunity of the Otira tunnel and other Alpine tunnels from damage after a really big shake may be regarded as not irrelevant, and certainly as being, as far as it goes, highly satisfactory. We do not know whether anyone has undertaken a statistical survey of injury to life or damage to property resulting from the collapse of engineering interferences with Nature, but we are prepared to believe that, notwithstanding sensational catastrophes like that recently occurring in the United States, the average loss rate would bo found to be low and the risk a safe one. In an Alpine earthquake, with hillsides on the move, the tunnel might actually be the safest place. In the wet season also, with slips about, most railway passengers speculating on "the better 'ole" would hardly need two guesses. For one life lost through collapsing tunnels or bursting dams, there are probably a hundred lost through earthfalls or bank-breaking rivers. At any rate, until the glacial age returns, the engineers will probably merit the public's confidence. • '. ■ >