TIDAL WAVE FEAR

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 74, 6 March 1931, Page 6

TIDAL WAVE FEAR

AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE SMALL ISLAND AFFECTED LONELY FARMER'S REPORT \ _____ NAPIER, March 4. Fears that Napier might be swept by,.a tidal wave after the earthquake on February 3 were apparently not without foundation, for information which has just come to hand from Portland Island, off the end of Mahia Peninsula, states that that small piece of land was washed by a wave over twenty feet in height. • An old man, Mr. W.Neville, who h.as*had a small farm on the low portion of'Portland Island for many years, and whose family are the only inhabitants of the island, apart from that of the ijighthousekeeper, brought the news to Napier yesterday, when he arrived by launch across | Hawke Bay, that a tidal wave, fortunately a small one, had followed ; only a short time after the quake.

"It was about twenty feet or a little more in height." he said. "Fortunately it was loW' tide, otherwise it might have been much higher and might have done much more damage. It came from the south, or between there and south-east." The fact that the . wave travelled from the south indicates that it was probably started by the land at the other extremity of the bay, Cape Kidnappers, rising from the water. The seashore at Cape Kidnappers, or at the Gannets, as it is more familiarly known, runs almost east and west, so that a sudden rise of the earth there would probably send a wave" in a northerly direction.

Reports that a tidal wave would probably follow the 'quake were circulated through stricken Napier within an hour of the shake, and there were many who had definite fears about the possibility of such a visitation. It ,is much more probable, however, that a wave, if one did start, travelled away from Napier, as the land here rose. Had it sunk seven feet instead of rising, it is not improbable that a wave would have struck the long shingle beach.