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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9305, 19 November 1901, Page 3

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W. Macfarlane's residence, Kaiwarara. Sir George Clifford's stone-built residence at Stoneyhurst was also much damaged, and similar reports come from other star tions. The townships of Rotherham and Culverden appear to have had a fortunate escape, the damage reported being but trifling. Some slips occurred m the cuttings on the Kaikoura road, bat they were not of a serions nature. Over fifty shocks and earth tremors were felt at Waiau between the time of the first earthquake and 9 o'clock yesterday morning, when they ceased, and it goes without saying that the people were kept m a state of excitement and alarm. Yesterday they were engaged endeavoring to straighten up their homes and make temporary arrangement* for cooking their food. Had the earthquake come m stormy or wintry weather there would have been much suffering. Following are extracts from the Christchurch Press reports giving particulars of the Cheviot disaster supplied by their special correspondents: Cheviot, Sunday. — The convulsion which shook up Christchurch and damaged nearly all the inland towns of Canterbury, has left Cheviot shattered and rent. Somewhere beneath Cheviot the Titanic forces of the underworld seem •first- to have broken bounds. The district has borne. the severity of the! shock which has been slowly dissipated m its radiating passage outwards until it was lost somewhere m the deep Pacific. The news of the catastrophe at McKenzie which reached Christchurch on Saturday was "not overestimated. One has only to look at the strained eyes of the anxieus inhabitants and to glance at the wreck that remains of a flourishing township to see the dreadful nature of this great disaster. The" scanty details to hand let loose vague rumors everywhere, and the second question the waiting crowds at the wayside statics asked of the passengers by Saturday night's northern train was : Have you heard about Cheviot?" The first was always, "Is Christchurch all right?" As we rumbled soberly through the little towns between Christchurch and Waipara, with plenty of time to observe, there was little to indicate that the earthquake 1 had done any damage at all. One fallen chimney at Kaiapoi seemed the only record of the shocks ofi the morning, but on every platform the anxious groups waiting testified to the excitement that the convulsion had caused. The 1 train boys with bundles of evening papers drove a lucrative trade, and before Amberley' was left behind every paper was sold, and ffee folks northward m the direction of Culverden were, left without. Landing' at Amberley, the train boys were mobbed for the last remaining sheet, and at Waipara a few passengers' copies of Truth sold at sixpence each. At the latter place all sorts of fantastic stories were flying &bout. Cheviot, said the man on the station, was wiped out of existence, half the people m the settlement were dead or dying, and a river of molten lead was rolling to. Port Robinson from the site of what had once been the Government post office. Waipara itself seemed hourly expecting devastation, and an electric sensitiveness kept the people from their beds. At intervals m the night slight earth tremors, spasms of ebbing life, as it weTe, from the exhausted monster, imprisoned below, shook the district, but no serious shock occurred. Early next morning I left for McKenzie. There was no sign m the undulating tussock downs, scored only by the yellow railway cuttings stretching beyond Waipara, that the quivering earth had been riven only a few miles away by a tremendous outburst • such as has never visited this island within the memory of man. At Tepapa, commonly known, as the Half-way House, because it is not half way, some dilapidated chimneys revealed the first evidence of the catastrophe that was soon to be made vividly plain to us. Further on, at Foster's cutting, crack and fissures m the earth and l|nd slips occasioned by the shock j>Lthe previous morning became visible. It was evident we were appraoching the centre -of this overwhelming convulsion. Every mile showed more plainly these symptoms of a violent earthquake. Finally the chimneyleEß Cheviot hove m sight, a whole district with not three brick chimneys to bless itself with. It was a strange spectacle. Every house showed signs of the shock, either a window broken or a door displaced, but the most strange feature of the landscape was the absence ofl chimneys. Except m the township of McKenzie, they • had been ripped off neatly, m most instances, level with the roof. In McKenzie itself they had been annihilated. A few miles out, at Domett, we came on a school house. Its high chimney had beefc" torn off bodily and dashed-* across the playground, shattering the iron roof r like itinsel m its path. Near it Btood the master's dwelling, a week ago completed, now a* dismantled wreck. It was a forecast of what was to come m McKenzie. I cannot attempt to adequately describe the scene of destruction which met the eve as we approached the township. Such devastation has surely never before been seen wrought m so short a space of time m this colony. Not a solitary building has escaped, and the desolate picture the place presents is very saddening. Many a struggling settler who had built a home here by patient labor awoke to find his