THE EARTHQUAKE

Evening Star, Issue 18160, 28 December 1922, Page 4

THE EARTHQUAKE

DECIDED SHOCKS FELT LOCALLY* The effects of the earthquake were felfi in decided) fashion at tire Dunedin Polios yesterday. A member of the staff was using the telephone in the detective office at the time (3.T0 p.m.), and was consequently startled' when the instrument was thrown off the mantelpiece) where it usually stands, on to the floor at his feet. A small mirror was also shaken from its upright position, and things generally received a shaking up. The vibrations were likened to those caused by a heavy train going over a bridge. In the district office, on the ground floor, another member of the staff was typing, when the machine was violently jerked from his'fingers. A number of people' in various parts of the city felt the shock; and at Brighton two ladies who were sitting on the beach felt the sand beneath them sway in an alarming maimer, and lost no time in leaving the spot. THE CHEVIOT QUAKE OP 1901. Air Allan Young, of the Columbia Gramo-phono Parlors, who resided in Cheviot at the t : me of the big “ quake ” of 1901, retold some of his expediences to a ‘Star’ reporter this morning. Air Young's father was postmaster of the town, and young Allan (he was-a boy then) remembers the consternation caused when tho first big shock came, at seventeen minutes to 8 on the morning of November 16 of that year. This lasted so long that there was time for the people to rush out of their houses and watch the surrounding paddocks rolling like an ocean swell Every chimney came down, and Moffltt’s boarding-house was shifted from its foundations. Lady Campbell’s house, which suffered during this week's shock, was also badly knocked about. Cavities in the streets and paddocks opened to the extent of yards, not inches. The battery jars in the Telegraph Office were all broken, and communication with Christchurch was not resumed until hours afterwards. At 7 p.m. another heavy shock was experienced, and added to the chaos caused by the first. Smaller shocks occurred at intervals for months afterwards. The only fatality was that in which a child was buried beneath, the sod walls of a house which, collapsed in the first shock. It is worthy of note, Air Young remarked, that it was the Cheviot earthquake that started “Dick" and “Jack” Arnst on the cycling careers which proved so successful. The brothers were ploughing in tho district at tho time, and when communication with Christchurch was out off they undertook to take the news in. A strenuous ride on their bicycles over a road that was unstable enough to on one occasion throw the riders from their machines resulted in record time being put up, and this revealed to the brothers the possibility that they might bold their own in the then popular sport of road racing. How they did more than hold their own, both on the road and on the track, and how “Dick” rose to championship honors also in the rowing world, is well known to sportsmen.