The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, September 17th 1932. THE EARTHQUAKE.

Grey River Argus, 17 September 1932, Page 4

The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, September 17th 1932. THE EARTHQUAKE.

The people of the Northern Hawke’s Bay and Poverty Bay districts will have the deep sympathy of the whole country in the visitation to which they were yesterday subjected. There will be a general wish to see them extended by the State and by other agencies a generous measure of relief. Coming less than two years after the 1931 disaster, this one will be felt with double severity. Yet, it is some consolation that there should have been no loss of life and no serious casualty. This was doubtless due to the difference in the nature of the earthquake, which had a lateral, instead of a perpendicular motion ; but the fact that, in one locality, no less a quantity of papa rock than six hundred thousands tons should have been ejected from a higher to a lower level, bears wit ness to the force and violence of the disturbance. The tov.n of Wairoa, which in 1931 suffered severely enough, seems on this occasion to have fared the worst of any locality, although Ihe adjacent back country must have also been wrecked extensively, while the town of Gisborne has been damaged to a very serious extent. Although it is suggested that the centre of the upheaval has been close to Wairoa, credence must be given to the seis mic experts’ calculations that it was some distance seaward. It is probable that the origin has been similar to that of the 1931 earthquake, which the best authorities attributed to readjustments in the bed of the ocean, where the immensity of Ihe body of water and the variations of temperature and other pressures set up strains that are vast and varied. It is significant that Rotorua, in the heart of the thermal -region, escaped this earthquake entirely, although its ambit was further to the northward than that of 1931. As remarked in a Wairoa message, the lesson of the former upheaval was emphasised yesterday, when wooden buildings properly constructed stood the strain far better than those of brick or concrete. It may be said that such earthquakes, despite their immediate [ effect, do make for greater seis-|

mie stability later, insofar as that they are natural readjustments, but there is yet no means of judging the scope of the process. It is thus necessary to be prepared for every eventuality in a country through which there runs the great fault line extending along the western margin of the Pacific Ocean. Within a space of four years, the Dominion has experienced three major earthquakes. with minor ones meantime that went to indicate no immunity eould be claimed for any except, perhaps, the southern part of the country. New Zealand must be regarded as being akin to Japan in its liability to earthquakes, and must therefore be adapted for the consequences architecturally and otherwise. After the former Hawke’s Bay disaster this was realised generally, and it has now been further emphasised. Our safest material for building is demonstrably timber. The reported contnuance last night, of frequent tremors inland from Wairoa and Gisborne, preceded by audible warnings, indicated the nature of the disturbances to be deep seated. Experience. however, in previous earthquakes. even as far back as those which lasted many weeks in North Canterbury around Cheviot, would suggest they are a good rather than a bad omen. They represent a reaction and indicate the recurrence of major shocks is scarcely to be expected. In the thermal region, after the 1931 earthquakes, the slackening of geysers and a fall in the level of lakes suggested volcanic action was related to them as an effec'. rather than as a cause. Earthquakes, therefore, as an adaptation of nature, however awful in prospect, may be regarded with some little equanimity ill retrospect.