RECENT EARTHQUAKE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21366, 20 June 1931, Page 11

RECENT EARTHQUAKE

DAMAGE IN ENGLAND LINCOLN CATHEDRAL SUFFERS. LONDON, June 8. An examination shows that 29 “ telltale ” cement tablets which had been placed over cracks in the flying buttresses of Lincoln Cathedral were broken by the .earthquake two nights ago, and that the cracks had widened half an inch. Had the earthquake occurred three years ago, before the completion of the restoration plan, the whole front of the cathedral would have collapsed. Lincoln Cathedral, which both internally and externally is one of the noblest, as well as one of the oldest, ecclesiastical edifices in England, suffered in an earthquake in 1185, only the west front with the Norman towers then remaining. The vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, has been placarded with warnings against smoking owing to the discovery that the earthquake cracked a joint in the gas main. Police placed a cordon round the area and _ ordered passers-by to put out their pipes and cigarettes. Workmen located the leak in St. Paul’s churchyard.

Fifty feet of the coping of four threestoreyed houses in Walworth was weakened by the earthquake and crashed down into the basement. The London insurance market has been rushed with orders from all over • the country for special policies covering earthquake risks on property.