GREATER THAN ARTHUR’S PASS EARTHQUAKE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18787, 17 June 1929, Page 10

GREATER THAN ARTHUR’S PASS EARTHQUAKE.

SHOCKS TOO SEVERE TO BE REGISTERED AT THE OBSERVATORY.

“The earthquake appears to have been a greater one than the Arthur’s Pass ’quake of March 9,” said Mr H. F. Skey, officer in charge of the Observatory.

For over a quarter of an hour the degree of the. tremors was beyond the range of the recording instrument, and lor half an hour after the first shake movements continued to be registered. "I think it certain,” said Mr Skey, “that the origin was to the west of us. It may have been out at sea somewhere, possibly north-west of Cook Strait.” It would be possible to determine the origin with greater accuracy, he said, when reports were to hand from the North Island. Mr Skey witnessed the extraordinary scatter by the ducks on Lake Victoria. The waves raised in the lake were only about half an inch high, he said, and not sufficient to alarm the ducks, which must therefore have been raised by the impulses arising from the bed of the lake. The earthquake emphasised, as past earthquakes have done, the need for proper instrumental equipment at the Observatory. With such equipment it would be possible to tell within a few miles the place of origin of an earthquake. “At present,” confessed Mr Skey, “we get at the origin by the relative amount of damage done in each place.” KNOX CHURCH HAD CROSS SHAKEN OFF BY EARTHQUAKE Knox Church, on the corner of Bealey Avenue and Victoria Street, was dam jed by the earthquake. The cross on the centre gable on the north side now stands at a jaunty angle '..0 the gable, the coping being loose. On the south sisie of the building the stone cross on the centre gable came tumbling down, crashing to the ground in pieces.

The coping stones on the tops of the other gables are loose, and one or two bricks have been dislodged from high up in the building. The gable on the Sunday school hall, which bears a steel cross, has also become loose, and the cross stands w ;< -h a slight lean on. A few of the very small sections of the stained glass windows succumbed to the shock and were broken.

CHIMNEY FALLS DOWN AT NURSES’ CLUB. Half of one chimney crashed to the ground and another chimney was badly cracked at the Trained Nurses’ Club, 104, Salisbury Street. The building is a two-storey one. and the occupants had an unnerving experience when the bricks from the chimney came toppling down. Nothing in the house itself was damaged by the shake.