WHEN SCHOOL COLLAPSED

Taranaki Daily News, 7 February 1931, Page 9

WHEN SCHOOL COLLAPSED

PUPILS IN FALLING BRICKS TRAGEDY OF TECHNICAL SCHOOL. STORY OS’ AN* OBSERVER ON SPOT The story of the destruction of the Napier Technical High School in the earthquake was-told by a man who was on the spot to a News reporter in New Plymouth, last night. He had arrived in New Plymouth ftom Hawke’s Bay in the everting with his family. “It came at 10.45 a.m. on Tuesday,” he said, “and if the children had been given five minutes longer play-time they might have been saved. There were eight killed) not 14.” The thing came very suddenly. There was a sway and he walked a few step® to the stains and the walls fell. The children had to go through the spaces in the debris to get outside. ‘The teacher® and the older boy® behaved wonderfully, They were the bravest I ever eaw, in fallen bricks, mortar and concrete,” .. They all ran to get outside and then the teachers and the senior boy® and girls went back for the others. The senior bove and girls were grand material- Some of the teachers . were badly mauled, the art muster especial- ? There were 340 boys and girls in the school. It was the first day and 140 of them were new pupilA They had been in school only an hour and a half. That was tragic because the masters could not identify the new pupils. “There was 'no warning,’’ he said. “Tha building swayed and then the bricks eariie away. I came out of a room to go up the stairs,'* By the time I reached the stairs the bricks came out. There was only one staircase m the whole building. Children on the second storey fell through the floor. The only hope for them was to hide behind and beneath the desk®, and when they saw an opening to make for it. “At the front entrance the walls and ceiling filled the centre of the entrance and the children crept through the debris at the sides. The panes smashed and they dashed through the windows. The second shake, a mimite after the first, was the worst. Saddest of all were the cries and screams of the caught and injured.” Besides the teachers and the senior pupils, men passing in the streets ran in to save these trapped. Men going by on lorries stopped and plunged in. He saw the spire of the Roman Catholic Church swaying backwards and forwards. If it h“d fallen it would have come over the school. Afterwards, ill the.open, it wus a terrible feeling to lie flat on.one’s back and feel the ground thrusting up in waves- beneath one. A boy had been dug out of .the debris on Thursday after being imprisoned two days, and there must be moi‘e inside. He hlmshlf was taking his family away and then he must go back. It would be a lesson in the building of schools, said the observer. Each classroom should have two doors and not bn attv account should any more schools'be "built of brick. There must be more scientific system in all buildings.