EFFECTS OF GREAT QUAKE

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1929, Page 11

EFFECTS OF GREAT QUAKE

LYELL DISTRICT VISITED

ONE ROAD DROPPED FIFTY FEET,

LANDSLIDE SIXTY CHAINS WIDE,

By Telegraph.—Prdss Association,

Westport, Aug. 31. A representative of the Westport News who has just visited Lyell has come back with the impression that nothing that has as yet appeared in the illustrated Press or that has Keen written has adequately described the colossal earth movements of the great earthquake of June 17 last.

Mention has been made of a road which dropped 14 feet. That is nothing. In .one place the road has moved out 25 feet and dropped 50 feet, carrying with it all the telegraph posts, which are still standing in the lafie alongside the dropped piece of road. <

In another place a hill has been bodily moved out. on to the.road, 1 but it is tlie rock movements that invite special notice. Words and pictures .given of the landslides have conveyed the impression that the surface was opened up on the spurs and mountain sides as if with a great - razor. There is more than that, for the rock formation, is rent and torn and has descended the hillsides in rivers of rock, some portions of which are of immense size. ■ ,

Beyond Lyell, which was not visite'd by the News representative, there is, according to the account of a roadman, a landslide sixty chains in width. How all that remains of the once famous township of Lyell escaped is incomprehensible, for the surrounding hillsides are broken and torn with the faces of the spurs shattered.

Mr. C. F. Schadick, county engineer,! who has been through the Lyell and Karamea districts, brings back a 'similar story regarding the earth movements s there. They are colossal, he stated. ' Nothing he has yet seen has given anything like an adequate description of th& immense eruptive for/es that were at work. He has some photos of land that is all a jump caused by geyser-like movements as the underground was crushed by the great ’quake and caused water to belch high into the air. One can gather something from the/account by poor Fred Patz, who was at’ Corby vale , when the ’quake occurred,. when, he said, he sat alone on a ledge a terrified spectator of the great land movement on the other side of him, and with the sides of the mountain, being flung from half a mile to threequarters of a mile away. ;Z Patz had -written three special articles on his impressions . for the Westport News when, wrecked by his terrifying experiences, he was admitted to the Westport hospital, where he died.

It is suggested that, with a view to giving the public elsewhere some idea of this great earth movement, the shipping 'companies arrange for an excursion from Wellington to Westport, th® Railway Department doing likewise' from Christchurch to Inangahua' Junction. From-the last-named place excur-' sionists could be taken as far as Arnolds, a distance of between 6 and 7 miles, and then walk on to Lyell. What they would see would be a revelation to them. They would marvel, as will most who have seen the riven country, how it is that in something so cataclysmal the loss of life was so small. Possibly many will prefer to come via Nel-' son and Murchison by the new Mama route down through Reef ton to Inangahua Junction, and thence proceed to Lyell. They would thus be able to se® the district in which no fewer than four lives were lost by the eruptive and disruptive forces of the big ’quake, while in the distance also will be seen Lower Marua Valley, where there is another new lake Jormed, and where also history has its tragic side as five people, were overwhelmed by a landslide. ■lt has been stated that what New Zealand lacks is history. Over this route the traveller will have history written in tragedy as the road will take him close past Lake Morel, and as they come on through the valley tourists from.the; Old Country will have further striking evidence of the remarkable resemblance of this Britain of the South to the Homeland in beautiful river and forest, scenery, striking mountain ranges, and .• ■many commanding and show-capped • peaks. : i