LATEST DEATH-ROIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20807, 25 February 1931, Page 13

LATEST DEATH-ROIL.

TOTAL OF 279 "KNOWN.

WORK OF IDENTIFICATION.

PUZZLING TASKS FOR POLICE.

[by telegraph.—special reporter.] HASTINGS. Tuesday.

The earthquake death-roll for Napier nnd Hastings and the immediate vicinity now stands at 279. This total includes only bodies or incinerated remains actually recovered, and takes no account of persons reported as missing. Of the whole number of dead, 28 at Napier and five at Hastings have not - been identified. Some of the charred remains are still held for identification, and others have beon buried for lack of any evidence by which identity could be established. The death-roll is made up as follows:—Napier, 147; Hastings, 100; Parke Island Old People's Home, 15; Greenmeadows seminary, 9;-Greenmeadows, 4; Taradale, 4. The police have had some strange problems to solva in identifying burned remains, and the amount of trouble they have taken is extraordinary. In ' many instances all that the searchers first discovered was a thin'layer of small pieces of bone, sometimes no more than would fill a handkerchief, with no piece more than an inch and a-half long. Such remains had probably been consumed in the original fire and the bones had been further disintegrated by baking under tons of red hot bricks for more than a week.

Evidence From Articles.

In such cases the routine was to pass all the ashes below through a sieve in the hope of finding jewellery or other objects of metal which the deceased might have worn or carried. Often the evidence of such articles as watch chains, pendants or pocket knives, added to other information in the hands of the police, was sufficient to enable the remains to be identified beyond any doubt whatever. One man's death was established completely by a discoloured gold signet ring bearing a family crest. Remains found to-day had associated with them abundant evidence that the deceased was a woman. There was a small brooch, the metal top of a handbag, a bunch of keys, a crochet hook, a manicure file, a pair of scissors, two heel plates and a collection of hairpins. The pins. and the heel plates, which were large, suggested to the police that the woman was of middle age. By washing in water a fragment of charred material, they established the fact that it was from her thin summer dress, and that it bore a pattern of little tulips. This and the brooch, they hope,. will lead to identification.

Some Curious Discoveries.

Sometimes, however, no metal articles whatever could be found, or again, the sieving yielded only things in common use from which nothing could be deduced. Efforts were always made to check the identification by an expert scrutiny of the bones to see whether they were male or female, and this could often be done with reasonable certainty. In searching the ruins some curious finds have been made. On a doctor's premises some, bones were found, and it .was remarked that they were nearly pure white, with no trace of charring. The mystery was solvecJ when two small holes were discovered running through a. spinal vertebra. These showed that the bones belonged to a- mounted skeleton, a deduction afterwards confirmed by the doctor.

On another occasion, while searching a site for the remains of a man and a woman, the police found two sets of charred remains. The search was continued, however, and the diggers reached the sand on which' the building stood. About this level two mora collections of bones were found. They were not blackened, but brown in colour. The police have an open mind on the matter, but they think it. very probable that they were remains of old-time Maoris buried among the sandhills long before Napier came into existence.

MODERATE SHOCK FELT.

NAPIER DISTRICT WEATHER.

FRUITGROWERS AFFECTED

[BY TELEGR APH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] NAPIER, Tuesday.

Tho weather was cold and showery at Napier to-day. The rivers were running at normal level. A moderately strong earthquake shock was felt at 8.30 p.m. Difficulties are being experienced in the district by fruitgrowers, owing to the dry spell and the high winds causing fruit to fall. Those whose orchards are well protected from the winds are able to attend to export, work, but a continuance of the present conditions will do much damage.

REPLANNING NAPIER,

EXAMPLE FROM DUBLIN.

GREAT SAVING IN COST,

When it. comes to replanning the business portion of Napier it should be of interest to study what was accomplished in this direction .in Dublin after the destructive bombardment during the 1916 rebellion. Mr. James Moran, a member of the Senate of the Irish Free State, who arrived by the Marama yesterday on a visit to New Zealand, gave some interesting particulars of this work, with which he was closely associated. " After the rebellion," he said, " the Corporation of Dublin, of which at that time I was an alderman, had a bill, called the Dublin Reconstruction Bill, passed by the British House of Commons by means of which it was possible to widen the thoroughfares of the devastated part of the city for a fraction of what might have been the cost had the work been carried out by the usual method. A clause in that. Bill, known as the Substitution of Sites Clause, gave the Corporation pow§r to widen any thoroughfare by a.'very simple procedure." The process, in effect, was to set back the frontages of a street and compensate those property-holders who' were dispossessed with properties acquired at the rear of the block. It was, in fact, only necessary for the Corporation to purchase two sections, one at each corner of the rear of the block, under this scheme. It was extremely economical to the Corporation and amply satisfied dispossessed owners, who were given equally good business sections ait other corners of the same block.

"I shall he very pleased to furnish the authorities of Napier with detailed information regarding this scheme, should they so desire," said Mr. Moran.