DETAILS OF LOSSES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9304, 18 November 1901, Page 2

DETAILS OF LOSSES.

MARVELLOUS ESCAPES PROM DEATH. IMMENSE FALL OF STONE. PRANKS WITH THE LANDSCAPE. SERVICE OF THANKSGIVING. CHRISTCHURCH, this. day. It is impossible at present to even give an estimate of the enormous damage done by the earthquakes m the Cheviot district. Every house lias suffered, and some have been utterly wrecked." ' , Mr A. C. Bellwood, storekeeper and general agent, estimates his loss at £300. His shop is twisted, the windows have gone, and the stock is ruined. , . Jas. Jenkins, draper, had his Christmas stock on hand, and estimates the damage at between £300 and £400. F. A. Cook's grocery store has been smashed most unmercifully. He estimates the damage atf*over £300. The damage at the Cheviot News office is £200. The McKenzie boarding-house, owned by Mr R. Moffatt, has also suffered extensively, and has been shifted from it« foundations. Mrs BrownleeV drapery' store ha« suffered to almost as great an extent, and Hubbard and Hall's premises have been temporarily divorced from their foundations. There are a dozen other buildings which are m th« (same condition, but thasa comprise the most important business places m McKenzie. The private residences of Mr Jas. Butland and Dr Ingliß, two of the best houses m Cheviot-, are more or less ruined, and uninhabitable. The stations north of the Waiau seem to have suffered equally with the rest of Cheviot country. The damage at Rutherford's fine homestead is estimated at over £2000. In addition to the damage, it has done to McKenzie, the earthquake has played some strange pranks with the landscape. The road m the vicinity has subsided four feet into a creek; and the roads all round are cracked ajid fissured.

Townspeople are only now beginning to recover from their demoralisation, and to take an interest m their surroundings. Women and children are still camped m the gardens, but some attempt is being made to get the least damaged of the houses into habitable condition. Yesterday afternoon outside the post office a solemn service of thanksgiving, conducted by the Anglican and Presbyterian clergymen, was held m the street. It was an impressive scene. People gathered, bare-headed, m the open street, and, surrounded by the ruins of their homes, offered up fervent and heartfelt thanksgiving to Almighty God for the preserving of their lives throughout the great struggle between the mighty forces of Niture beneath and around them. A drive to Port Robinson from Mackenzie just now is only accomplisned under peculiar and exciting conditions. Ou the Bluff road the nplieaval has been stupemlous. Million); of cubic feet of rock have been hurled from the high bluffs above- to the road below, burying it with forty fett of debris. The county engineer estimates that it will take a year to clear the road again. One cannot cease to marvel "at the wonderful escapes from death which occurred on every side. At Gore Bay there was a most realistic instance. In the accommodation house, when the first shock took place, the family were at breakfast m the kitchen, a lined room, with tongued-and-grooved roof. The high chimney, standing 15 feev above the roof, crashed headlong into the room, smashing m the iron, splintering the lining to matchwood, and filling the - room three feet deep with galvanised iron, broken boarding, bricks and mortar ; yet no one was killed. Only one lad had his ankles bruised. After a survey it is even | now almost incredible- that anyone could have escaped alive from such a d/ath-trap. Another extraordinary instance occurred at the residence of a laborer named Kaye. He ha? a family of some eight or nine young children, and they were all asleep m the house, a three-roomed cob whare. The initial shock levelled it to the ground, and left it, m -fact, a heap of clay and debris ; yet all these children escaped unhurt. These are not singular instances. Many such are recorded m the settlement. One of the shocks felt at Cheviot last night was almost as severe as the main one felt at Christcburch on i Saturday morning.