QUAKES AT TAUPO

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11307, 5 September 1922, Page 4

QUAKES AT TAUPO

HUNDRED IN A DAY TOKAANU SAID TO BE CENTRE 0® DISTURBANCE. PROFESSOR MARSDEN’S VIEWS. The following telegram has been received by the Secretary of the General Post Office from the postmaster at Tokaanu:— TOKAANU, September 4. “Between 12.15 a.m. on Sunday morning over 100 earthquakes were felt in Tokaanu. There was also a very severe shake at 5.30 a.m., and throughout the day the number felt was about 40. Last night the position eased somewhat, and only about five shakes took place. The residents are not at all perturbed, and state that past experiences have been similar, and that the earthquake in thi* district started at Taupo, and then worked through to Ngauruhoe, the natural outlet. Ngauruhoe has not been active for some months. “A peculiarity of the disturbance now taking place is that persons in a building have the impression that the ’quakes are rather severe, and yet no persons have ever felt a shake when in the open. At present the position is quiet. I estimate the radius of the disturbance as about 15 miles, with Tokaanu as the centre.”SUBSIDENCE OF LAND THOUSANDS OF TONS FALL. For several weeks past, the long series of earthquakes in the Taupo district has been decreasing in severity, though there have been occasional recoveries of vigour. One of these recoveries has occurred in the last low days, and is described in the shove message from Tokaanu. Professor E. Marsden, who has just returned from a short visit to the district, stated yesterday that the most important evidence he saw was the wholesale subsidence of a large block of land which forms a peninsula between Whakaipo Bay and Whangamat* Bay, on the north shore of the lake. This peninsula is edged by stoep cliffs, which ÜBed to have beaches nt the foot; but the whole area, measuring about a mile and a quarter wide and two miles long, has dropped about four and a half feet, so that the beaches are submerged. The drop tapers out along the adjacent shores, aim its inland boundary is also indistinct; the subsidence extends northward, in diminishing exent, for several rules. Great quantities of material, amounting to thousands of tons, have fallen off the eastern face of the peninsula into the lake. Professor Manden, when told of yesterday’s message from Tokaanu, said that the 'report, which indicated only slight shocks, indicated a southward trend of the disturbances—a movement which he had expected.