IMPRISONED IN VALLEY

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1929, Page 3

IMPRISONED IN VALLEY

EARTHQUAKE REFUGEES AUCKLANDERS’ EXPERIENCE. “OLD MAN” STILL THERE. Two Aucklanders, Messrs. F. Gilbert and A. Kinnaird, have returned from the Murchison district with a vivid story of experiences during the recent earthquake there. The two men were driving a tunnel for a goldmining company at a place called Newton Flat, near Murchison, where the full force of the disturbance was felt. “When the ’quake shook our valley it seemed to roll across the flat in a series of huge billows. No one could stand up. All the buildings were thrown down, the hills threatened to slide into the valley, the roaring and the booming of subterranean explosions was deafening,” states Mr. Kinnaird. One of the high mountains that surround the valley split down the middle The near side rushed forward, poured over an intervening range, and buried the school, where half a dozen children were at lessons. The children behaved splendidly, and by the’ time a rescue party arrived from the village they had dug each other out and were all safe.” STOVE DISAPPEARED. Tho ’quake played some remarkable tricks. One family was sitting round the fire when the tremor came. The stove dropped cut of sight, and has never been seen since, a crack having opened in the ground, engulfed the stove, and closed again. All the cutlery in the valley turned a brilliant green, as if coated with verdigris, and it had to be scoured before it could be used. Apparently this was duo to the chemical action of some gas liberated from the ground, but it could not be detected by sense of smell. For a whole week the Newton Flat settlers were imprisoned in the valley. They lived in tents and huts, as none of their homes were habitable. Fortunately they were not short of food, several herds of cattle having been imprisoned with them. During the whole of the time the ground continued to shake, and further slips piled up to block the valley. Fifteen tremors were counted in one day, some of them nearly as severe as tho first. A TERRIBLE JOURNEY. When the ground steadied, and the people were able to take stock of their surroundings, they found themselves in a new country. One farm seemed to have been lifted bodily and transferred to the opposite side of the Buller River, which runs through the flat. One man found that a “wave” had stopped in the middle of his farm, making a hill where there had been a perfectly level area.. To escape from their prison, the refugees had to scramble over landslides and through gorges choked with debris. Some of tho slips were still moving, and the men,. clinging precariously to the treacherous surface, carried the women across. Sometimes they paused on the steep slopes while big boulders rolled past to drop hundreds of feet into the river. It took the party two days to reach Murchison, a distance of 11 miles. The skin was stripped from their legs in the chaos they had -to traverse, and Mr. Kinnaird is still bandaged. PART OF COUNTRY RUINED. Later Messrs. Gilbert and Kinnaird returned to Newton Flat in the hope of salvaging some of their belongings, but the way was so rough that they abandoned the idea, and contented themselves with surveying as much of the surrounding country as they could. Neither of the men is very optimistic regarding the rehabilitation of the stricken area. “Millions of pounds will have to be spent before people can take any stock or equipment into many of the valleys that were once the most prosperous,” says Mr. Gilbert. “Tho mountain country is poor,” he declares, “and those valleys where large slips have covered the former alluvial flats will be practically useless. Some of the roads now lead nowhere, but lose themselves in desolation of newly-formed hills and valleys. We are waiting now for a big flood to clean out and consolidate the country. When the water stai'ts to tear through those great earthquake rents a lot more land will tumble down.”

The prospect of finding valuable deposits of gold exposed by the slips is not a very bright one, thinks Mr. Gilbert. “The alluvial gold found in the rivers was ground out in the glacial age, millions of years ago," he states, “and, judging by the nature of the country, it is not likely to hold any very big veins, though small amounts may be found when the country is surveyed again. That will have to be done, as the contours of tho hills, and probably their altitudes, have been changed beyond recognition.” “By the way, the Old Man of the Mountains is still there. Reports that it has disappeared are incorrect," concluded Mr. Gilbert. The Old Man of the Mountains is a hill overlooking the Buller River, the summit of which looks like a profile view of a man lying on his back. “The Old Man’s features are changed for the worse. He is distinctly uglier than ho was, and not quite as distinct, but he is still lying there, sound asleep. Apparently he had the good grace not to get up and walk about, as some of the other mountains did.”