VIOLENT EARTHQUAKE.

Northern Advocate, 8 September 1888, Page 4

VIOLENT EARTHQUAKE.

Auckland, Tuesday. A VERY severe shock of earthquake was felt throughout the South Island on Saturday morning. The following Press Association message contains full particulars of the shock. Christchurch, Saturday. A very severe earthquaka was felt at 4.10 this morning. Twenty-six feet was broken off the top of the Cathedral spire, and a few chimneys were thrown down. The Cathedral bells were set tolling by the vibration, and continued to ring for several minutes. There was great destruction of glass and crockery ware, especially in shop windows. The direction was apparently northeast and south-west. The duration is estimated at fully a minute. Nothing so severe has been felt since a shock in 1869. The earthquake caused great commotion here. People left their houses in numbers, but returned when they found the shaking had ceased. A considerable crowd collected around the Cathedral, stones from the spire of which were scattered over the pavement for several yards. Some slates were knocked off the roof by the debrif , but the building otherwise is uninjured. It has been decided, however, not to hold services there tomorroi*. A small portion of the stonework on the Durham-street Wesleyan Church lias been displaced, and the services to-zaortrMT-will be held in the theatre instead of the church. A quantity of plaster is down in the Normal School. The chimneys fell at the East Christchurch School and a few private houses, particularly in Victoria-street. Generally, however, the damage is less than was expected. In the suburbs a few chimneys have fallen or been cracked. No injury to life or limb is reported. The shook was felt with great intensity at Amberley, borth of Christchurch, and also at Lyttelton. At neither of these places was there much damage done. On the High Bluffs, on the Sumner road, near Lyttelton, blocks of rock ten tons in weight, gave way and went into the harbour with a great crash, cairying fences and other obstructions before them. Marion's block, a great pile of new buildings opposite the Bank of New Zealand, has a considerable rent. The Sunnyside Asylum has escaped, no damage having been done to it. The Young Men's Christian Association building shows signs of having been considerably affected by the shock. Just before the first shock came, it is said that large flashes of light were seen in the direction {of Hanmer Plains Hot Springs. Five distinct shocks were felt in Christchurch, and extended over the space of half-an-hour. The first and fifth were sharpest. Tho steamer Eotorua, which arrived in Lyttlelton this morning, felt tb<3 shock when off Kaikonra. j A nn|tii»r ntinnlr was felt in Christchurch j a lew unimUj3""tireleTra this morning, j At the time of the earthquake shock a | scavenger named Ross was walkiug along the middle of the road through Cathedral i^SquAre, in front of the Cathedral, fie states that the spire began to sway almost with the commencement of the earthquake, and when the shock reached its climax, the upper part of the structure seemed to collapse, and came crashing to ground. One piece of stone fell very near to Boss. Most of the stone struck the footpath south-west of the tower, about the same spot where a small piece of stone, which was detached from the spire by j the earthquake of 1881, fell. { The asphalt was smashed to pieces for an irregularly shaped patch of nearly a j yard in extent. A' considerable portion of the debris fell into the Cathedral yard on the northern side of the tower. Anderson, the steeple-keeper, went to the Cathedral with the utmost promptness; and was inside it about ten minutes after the shock. He lighted the gas, and found that there was only one place of leakage from one of the standards near the font. One of the branches of this had been broken off by large splinters of wood detached from the roof beam by some falling masonry. Having -stopped the leak he proceeded to make an examination of the building. He had had some experience of South America, par excellence the laud of earthquakes, and knew what to look for, that was dust at the bottom of the walls inside. Anderson's examination was satisfactory. Dust there was none ; the walls were uninjured. Together -with Messrs A. Merton and Watkins, who had joined him, he pursued his investigations. He ascended the spire to find that nothing was injured below the break. The cross, which was hanging against the side of the steeple, he secured as well as he could with a rope. The cross was lowered this afternoon. The Cathedral tower and spire were the gift of the late Robert Heaton Ehodes, and cost about £2000. The spire wes 200 feet high. The break is about 20 feet from summit, not including the height of the cross. The spire is about six feet feet in diameter, at the point of fracture. The spire was built of Oamaru stone, and the remainder of the structure of bluestone, faced with Oamaru stone. The spire was strongly bound together vrith bond stones and iron. The cross on the summit was fixed to a rod braced to the upper portion of the spire. Professor E. Hutton considers that the stone used for the spire is totally unfit for the purpose, being too porous to support the weight of the iron cross. When the vibration began the weight of the cross cracked the stone. In any case the stone could not have stood many years within an earthquake region such as Christchurch is, as in addition to the continued vibration to which it is liable the poms nature of the stone is calculated to gradually cause it to fracture with its own weight. In the North-west Ward the chief damage has been suffered by the Normal School. One chimney has gone, the rest are more or less shattered. The ceilings in the rooms of the southern wing have had the plaster cracked. The pinnacle of the Durham-street Wesleyan Church has taken a slight " list to port," but it is not materially damaged, while the church itself is intact, with the exception of plaster here and there dislodged. \AII up Victoria-street and Papanui Eoad the chimneys in many nouses nave

had the brickwork shattered, and one or two have come down. In Moa Place, Madras- street, three feet of brickwork -was dislodged from the wall on Cookson's premises, and fell on the adjoining house of Young, smashing through tho roof of a bedroom in which two young ladies had been sleeping. They got out of bed luckily at the first shock, and just escaped being' crushed. At the time this wall was erected a protest was lodged against it with the City Council. The two chimneys in the south gables of the East Christchurch school were formerly coped with heavy blocks of stone, which always gave the impression of being top-heavy, and this morning's shock proved the correctness of this idea, as both suffered through the earthquake. The stones fell, some on the roof. At the gas works a considerable quantity of water was spilled out of the "water seal" tanks, in which the gas holders are placed. The movements of these holders dislodged the water, and caused it to flood the yards around the manager's house. It was up to the boot tops of the men working. The water was lowered about nine inches in the tanks. The shock was felt all through North Canterbury and "WaiA-ari, Kangiora, and Kaipoa. A few chimneys were thrown down, but no other serious damage done. Another slight shocA- was felt at twenty five minutes past four this afternoon. Sunday. A slight shod* of earthquafl-e was felt here at fifteen minutes past eleven this morning.