SENSATION IN RAROTONGA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21267, 23 February 1931, Page 8

SENSATION IN RAROTONGA.

FEARSOME TIDAL WAVES. RESIDENTS ALARMED. (Per United Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, February 22. The graphic description of a series of tidal waves, apparently the result of some submarine disturbance, that visited Rarotonga on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 28, nearly a week before the great earthquake that wrecked Napier and Hastings, is contained in a letter received in New Plymouth from Miss Freda Hirst, who is now on the Cook Islands Trading Company’s staff. Miss Hirst says that the extraordinary phenomenon created considerable alarm. “ I was lying on the back veranda early in the afternoon,” she says, “ when I heard the natives on the road yelling, and everyone rushed out to the front, so I went round too, and the sea, which had been like a mill-pond —it was_ a glorious day —had risen just outside the lagoon to a height of about 15 feet. It was advancing in wave after wave, this way and that in whirls. It seems that we narrowly escaped a bad tidal wave, as, instead of the whole disturbance coming at once, it came in a series of waves, which broke over the reef with terrific thundering, and rushed in up the harbour. Each successive wave submerged the wharf entirely, and went on until it filled all the big wharf sheds. Then it receded with tremendous speed, and a swirl of water and spray dashed over the grass and the road in front of our whare. I have seen some wonderful breakers here in stormy weather, rising to heights of 20 feet or so, but never anything like this. The breakers dashed over the reef with foam and spray 80 feet high, and one after another without a pause. It was a marvellous sight, but we were all quite alarmed. There was not a breath of wind, the sky was cloudless, and the sea far out (when we occassionally caught glimpses of it) was blue, calm, and still. It was the most extraordinary thing I have ever seen. It kept on like this until early this morning, and we hardly slept all night with the deafening boom, boom, like the crashing of thunder, and the rushing sound of the water advancing and receding with tremendous speed. We are all very anxious to hear whether there has- been a tidal wave anywhere else or a submarine volcano eruption. I was afraid that perhaps you had been having some very bad earthquakes, but the phenomenon was all from the north, and the south side of the island remained absolutely normal.