EARTHQUAKES & FLOODS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1942, Page 2

EARTHQUAKES & FLOODS

DAMAGE TO COUNTY ROADS AND BRIDGES. ESTIMATED AT £B6OO. Damage to Masterton County roads and bridges by the recent earthquakes and floods amounted to £B6OO, according to reports presented to yesterday’s meeting of the council. The consulting engineers, Messrs Seaton, Sladden and Pavitt, reported that there was considerable damage to four bridges and minor damage to a fifth as a result of the earthquake on June 24. The damage was principally t’o abutments. It was satisfactory to be able to state, they said, that the superstructure of all bridges appeared to be not impaired structurally. Three . of the bridges were over the Taueru River and the Wainuioru River, all being in the belt of the Taueru Valley fault line, referred to in the seismologists’ report on the earthquake. Generally speaking, such damage as had occurred could not have been designed against, because of the permanent movement of the ground. Considering the intensity of the earthquake and in view of the bridges all being in the belt of maximum disturbance the damage that had occurred was remarkably small. The bridges which most damage were those over the. Taueru River on the Masterton-Castle-point and Masterton-Stronvar main highways and on Lett’s Road and that over the Whakatamahine Stream on the Masterton-Stronvar Main Highway. The fifth bridge concerned, which suffered minor damage, was that over the Wangaehu Stream at 11 miles on the Masterton-Webei’ Main Highway.

The greater part of the damage, it was stated, was to sealed highways. On the Masterton-Castlepoint Main Highway 79 chains of sealing had been completely broken up, the cost of resealing which would be about £2OOO. Six chains of sealing on the Master-ton-Stronvar Highway, near the Wangaehu Stream and six chains on the Masterton-Weber Highway at Wangaehu would also require resealing. The existing concrete culvert at the Devil’s Elbow, on the Masterton-Castle-point Highway, was badly shattered and it would probably be necessary to put in a new culvert.