EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 266, 19 November 1901, Page 2

EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS.

G BEAT DEVASTATION. Mil-.ACULOUS ESCAPES ALARM OP TIIE PEOPLE. PLACE CRACKED AND FISSURED. AY ATE 11 THROWN A HUNDRED ELEC HIGH. (ilv Telegraph—Press Association.) MV.-mg i -.m. -yesterday. The Secretary oi Vie General Post Oil ice

ee ~- tile following telegram from the p, b',:.eisler -at Cheviot this morning : ‘•SVO a.m.— Addi! onui shocks of earth.-.j-t.tke have been felt since hist report. One al about- 10.83 last night was of an exceedingly severe nature, and has litre! a very alarming effect- on the inhabitants.

“ The recurrence of these shocks has prevented people from entering their dwellings, and last night women again slept, in the open air. " ft is impossible to estimate the damage hero, but the investigations of representatives of the newspapers lead me to the conclusion that many peop'.o are ruined, and that an enormous sum of money will be required to make good the losses. " 9.P0 a.iu. —A tremendous shock occurred at 9 o’clock this morning, almost rural in force to the great shock of Saturday. Rain has set in, and the people are preparing to leave.” Christchurch, yesterday. It is impossible at present to oven give an estimate of the enormous damage dona by the earthquakes in the Cheviot district. Every house has suffered, and some have 'been utterly wrecked. Mr A. C. Belhvood, storekeeper and general agent, estimates his loss at JIBOO. llis shop is twisted, the windows have gone, and the stock is ruined. Jas. Jenkins, draper, had his Christmas stock on hand, and estimates the damage at between X'3oo and .£4OO. F. A. Cook’s grocery store has been smashed most unmercifully. Ho estimates the damage at over TOGO. Ti:c damage at the Cheviot News office is A‘2oo. The McKenzie boarding-house, owned by Mr H. Moffatt, has also suffered extensively, and has been shifted from its fouu dutions. Mrs Brownlee’s drapery stove has suffered to almost as great an extent, and Hubbard and Hall’s premises have been temporarily divorced from their foundations. There are a dozen other buildings which are in the same condition, but these comprise tho most important business places of McKenzie. The private residences of Mr James Rutland and Dr Inglis, two of the best houses in Cheviot, are rnoro or less ruined, and uninhabitable. The stations north of Waiau seem to have suffered equally with tho rest of Cheviot country. Tho damage at Rutherford’s lino homestead is estimated at over .£2OOO.

In addition to the damage it has done to McKenzie, tho earthquake has played some strange pranks with the landscape. The road in the vicinity has subsided four feet into a creek, and the roads all round are cracked and fissured.

Townspeople are only now beginning to recover from their demoralisation, and to take an interest in their surroundings. Women and children are still camped in the gardens, but some attempt is being made to get the least damaged of the houses into habitable condition. Yesterday aftenioon outside the posted u:o a solemn service ot thanksgiving, conducted by tile Anglican and Presbyterian clergymen, was held in the street. It was an impressive scene. People gathered, bare-headed, in the open street, and, surrounded by the ruins ut their homes, offered up fervent and heartfelt thanksgiving to Almighty God for the preserving of their lives throughout the great struggle between tlio mighty forces of Nature beneath and around them. A drive to Port Itobinson from Mackenzie just now is only accomplished under peculiar and exciting conditions. On the Bluff road the upheaval has been stupendous. Millions of cubic feet of rock have been hurled from the high bluffs above to the road below, burying it with forty feet of debris.

The county engineer estimates that it will take a year to clear tho road again. One cannot cease to marvel at the wonderful escapes from death which occurred on every side. At Gore Bay there was a most realistic instance. In tho accommodation house, when the first shock took place, the family were at breakfast in tho kitchen, a lined room, with tongued-and-grooved roof. The high chimney, standing 15ft above the roof, crashed headlong into the room, splintering the lining to matchwood, and filling the room three feet with galvanised iron, broken boarding, bricks and mortar; yet no one was killed. Only one lad had his ankles bruised. After a survey it is even now almost incredible that anyone could have escaped alive from such a death-trap. Another extraordinary instance occurred at the residence of a laborer named Ivaye. lie has a family of some eight or nino young children, and they were all asleep in the house, a three-roomed cob wharo. Tiie initial shock levelled it to the ground, and left it, in fact, a heap of clay and debris; yet all these children escaped unhurt. These are not singular instances. Many such are recorded in tho settlement.

One of tho shocks felt at Cheviot last night was almost as severe as the main one felt at Christchurch on Saturday morning.

Later. According to telegrams, daylight found Cheviot more demoralised than ever. Tho residents were in the open air all night. Several more shocks occurred this morning, and a general exodus ef women and children to Christchurch, Waiau, and other places took place, the strain being too much for them. Many were hysterical. From tho districts around Cheviot news continues to be received of devastation and loss.

The tremendous shock this morning caused a panic, people preparing to leave in largo numbers. The shock throw people off their feet. No further damage is reported. Painful scenes are being witnessed in the township. Smaller shocks and earth tremors are felt every few minutes, intermingled with more severe convulsions.

Tho position is becoming alarming. Fresh cracks and fissures are continually opening up in Ilia ground. A petition is in circulation asking the insurance companies to assist the settlors, and an appeal to the Government is suggested. Settlers from Waiau report that cracks two feet wide have appeared in a paddock and are fuli of water.

Tee liver presented a strange spectacle on Saturday morning. As* the shocks progressed great cracks opened in its bed, into which the water poured. Presently the cracks closed suddenly and shot volumes of water a hundred feet high in the air.

THE SEISMOGRAPH,

REMARKABLE RECORDS. HAS THE SOUTH ISLAND EECEIVED A TILT.

[By Telegraph—Press Association.] Wellington, last night. Mr Hogben, Inspector-Gentral of Schools, who is in charge of one of the two sensitive seismographical instruments impelled by the Government, has examined tjic records taken by the machine. He states that the seat of the disturbance appears to have been in Lake Sumner district. The maximum vibrations lasted for two minutes. The shock began without any warning at 7.452 ami. The vibration which constituted the earthquake i prop or ? n for minutes. Large ! tremors went on for 71 minutes, and small tremors wore going on ali Saturday right up til) 10 at night, when Mr Hogben cut the record paper. The solid block of stone on which the seismometer stands was slightly tilted towards the west. Mr Hogben says that if tho tilt were general throughout the colony, which he thinks improbable, it

would mean that the West Coast would sink six inches, and the East Coast would be raised throe inches.

WHAT CAUSED THIS EARTH.QUAKES? scientific opinions. POSSIBLY CAUSED BY CKUSUING OF BOCKS. WAS IT ARTESIAN BORING ? (Special to Times.) Wellington, last r.ighf. Mr G. Hogben, the e.utbqu U.e atu.iOrity here, is inclined to the belief that ii'.e southern disturbances are attiibutabie to an adjustment of the earth’s surface, arising from what is known as rock-crushing, occuri'ing-orobeJ ly f'Ueen or twenty miles below the surface. This arises from the tightening of the crust of the earth by the action of rivers, and consequent increased depression of the sea bottom, setting up a gigantic pressure which must tiud au outlet somewhere. On the information to hand he thinks the disturbances move severe than the big Earthquake of lStSth When he has secured all possible data ho will probably prepare a paper on the subject. Sir James Hector, another authority, ventures the further opinion that a subsidence of submarine cliffs may have caused those disturbances, but lie also awaits further data. Ho points out, however, that a theory he advanced years ago that earthquako shocks wero always felt more severely in !-canties where there is extensive artesian baring is borne out in the present instance. This is accountable for by the fact that the constant tapping of artesian well? renders the bottom less secure and more susceptible to seismic disturbances.

TWO MORE SHOCKS. SEVEREST SINCE SATURDAY. PEOPLE IN SffATE OF DEPRESSION [By Telegraph—Press Association.] Wellington, 10.20 last night-. The Postmaster‘at Cheviot telegraphed at 7.80 to-night “ 1 regret to have to report two of the severest shocks since Saturday morning. “ The people arc m a state of deep depression, and have again taken to tents.'’

PROBABILITY OF RELIEF BY GOVERNMENT. By Telegraph—Press .Yrsocmlioi-. Wellington, hist night. At a meeting of the Cabinet In-night, the question of tho datin';;-- done atCheviot was considered by Minisn-rs. It was decided to request- the lion. Hall-Jones, who is at present in Christchurch, to proceed to Cheviot to-morrow morning, and investigate affairs. M non his report is made, Ministers will take action. It is probable that extensive relief measures will be at once instituted by the Government.