THE EARTHQUAKE RISK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22398, 20 October 1934, Page 14

THE EARTHQUAKE RISK

THE LIABILITY OF EXTREME NORTH AND. SOUTH We published on October 15 a summary of correspondence between the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Chamber of Commerce on tho subject of earthquake risk in New. Zea-. land, in the course of which the chamber strongly advanced, the view that the northern and southern extremities of the Dominion are not included in the danger zone. Since the publication of this correspondence we have been favoured with copies of : other letters on the matter. - ; is The president of the Auckland Chamber, of Commerce wrote on September 12 : “ One point of view is abundantly 1 confirmed by the chart appearing on page 66 of the eighth annual report of the Department of ■ Scientific and Industrial Research (Parliamentary Paper 1934, H-34) from which you will sec that there were some 20 earthquakes during the year within the area specially rated and none in the northern or southern extremities of New Zealand. I do not suggest that there is no risk'of .earthquake in these extremities, but it is abundantly dear that the risk there is relatively negligible. We are not by any means desirous of .opposing any action by the Government to; institute safeguards for , the; benefit of the Hie and health of the citizens of New Zealand. (During the calendar year 1933 there occurred 20 earthquakes with epicentres between 37} degrees south and 421 degrees south, and none out?, side these limits,' thus confirming the Auckland Chamber’s contention that tho risk of earthquake north of 37$ degrees and south of 44 degrees is relatively negligible.)-' v j ,.'. The Royal Society replied on September 25 expressing regret that the chamber seemed to be definitely determined to refuse its support to adequate precautions against loss due to earthquake in this country. Its arguments could have been used with equal force a few years ago in connection with Arthur’s Pass, Murchison, or even Napier, and yet all these places experienced destructive earthquakes. “ I think,” the president of the society wrote, “ you may rely on the seismologists and geologists of this country, who are fully acquainted with the map you refer to, some of them having had a definite share in its compilation, to be able to assess at their true value any inferences to be drawn from it.”

To this the president of the chamber rejoined that the society’s letter revealed such an astounding ignorance of facts and of the fundamentals of logic that he found it difficult to reply in measured terms. Its first sentence «uggested that the writer of it had not read the last paragraph of the letter to which it purported to be a reply. The second : sentence said in effect that maps for any years prior to 1931 similar to that on page 66 of the 1934 H-34 would have shown no epicentres near Napier, although earthquakes had originated in Hawke’s Bay on dates between 1863 and 1904. The last sentence of the letter not only ignored the differences of opinion between com-, potent geologists on the question? of earthquake risk but sought to awe one by an appeal to expert opinion and declined to face squarely.up to the issue of the message of the map in question. No reasons -were given why the ordinary' principles of the logic of probabilities as, regards the extent to which the pasts may be regarded as a guide to the:, future did not apply to the incidence of earthquakes just as much as to the incidence of any other phenomenon whose; causes are imperfectly known. *