Hawkes Bay Disaster [1931 Napier Earthquake] (1965)

[0:15]The city of Napier is 300 km north of the capital city of Wellington on the East Coast. Hastings is 20 km south of Napier. On the morning of February the 3rd, 1931, at 10:48, the district was shaken by an earthquake of a magnitude of 7 and 3/4 on the Richter scale. The epicenter being 20 km northwest of Napier. This was the first earthquake of a high magnitude in a populous area since the European settlement of New Zealand.

[0:53]The business area of Napier was badly damaged in the first quake and subsequently by fire. Only about 12 of these buildings didn't have to be demolished.

[1:07]On the right, the lower two floors of a hotel, a brick building with some steel beams. Fortunately, the naval sloop HMS Veronica had birthed in Napier 3 hours before the quake, and within 9 minutes, radio details and requirements to the naval base at Auckland. 3 and a half hours later, two cruisers with doctors, nurses, medical supplies, and rescue equipment left Auckland. Bread was baked on the all-night journey to Napier, where the cruisers arrived the next morning.

[1:56]Most of the damage was done by fire. It started in two pharmacies with naked gas flames and, of course, much flammable liquid. At the hospitals, all wards were damaged, and a temporary hospital was established in this park. 1% of the population, some 250 people were killed. Only 2% were caught cases, many hundreds, of course, were slightly injured.

[2:42]On the following day, 6% of the population were taken away by car, and eventually half of the population, mostly women and children, were taken south. Fortunately, the stocks of petrol were not destroyed. House damage was mostly confined to chimneys, but owing to the large number of subsequent quakes, people preferred not to live indoors.

[3:20]The water pumping station was damaged. The reservoir was cracked, and the water supply failed entirely 1 hour after the quake. One of the great problems was sewerage. The pumps were restarted on the third day, but it was 6 weeks before water and sewerage services were restored to the majority of houses. The northern highway. This damage was not typical of the damage to most of the Hawke's Bay roads. The causeway had been built across mud flats and failed largely through lack of lateral support. It was 9 days before a car reached Napier over this highway.

[4:58]The post office had suffered no structural damage. And when the fire was discovered, it could have been extinguished with one bucket of water, had there been one. Telegrams were sent by aeroplane for the first week. In addition to the official radio transmitters, the New Zealand amateur transmitters did sterling work.

[5:20]Lime mortar was used in brick work instead of cement mortar. For reinforced concrete instead of good clean sand, limestone sand had been used which reacted chemically with the cement. No cases were seen of reinforcing rods pulling through concrete.

[6:28]The Navy demolished dangerous walls, cleared the streets, took charge of food supplies, helped to restore the sewerage pumps, and generally did much to raise the morale of the people.

[6:50]Very typical of the damaged buildings was the collapse of the outside walls because they were not adequately tied in.

[7:27]The Technical College was a brick building of two floors without any concrete columns. There were 300 boys in this school at this time, and many of them were thrown out of the building. In one part, the roof collapsed within 3 feet of the upper floor. One boy was rescued the following day, not much hurt, quite cheerful, but very hungry.

[8:14]At the Napier Hospital, no patients were injured, although all the wards were damaged. Unfortunately, the nurse's home, a four-story brick building, collapsed, and many nurses who'd been on night duty were killed while asleep. In Hastings, also, a temporary hospital was established, and on the day of the quake, 66 operations were performed with full facilities.

[9:14]The building here tilted because after completion, some of the foundations were dug out for the installation of garages.

[9:26]This cliff was of strong limestone and the sea reached this wall at high tide prior to the quake. Fortunately, no one was on that portion of the highway at the time. The uplift was about 2 meters.

[9:47]The building on this corner is still in use today.

[9:57]The one of three floors further along had to be demolished.

[10:16]This building had to be refaced with a new front. Supply of electricity from the state system was restored 31 hours after the quake at a lower voltage.

[10:53]In Hastings, 20 km south of Napier, the Methodist Church.

[11:03]Here the electricity generating station was restarted 1 and a half hours after the quake. Water was pumped and fires were extinguished. 10 hours later, another severe shake put the generator out of action and fire spread through one block.

[11:33]A view of the main business street, 200 premises all together had to be demolished.

[11:44]The moral is, don't run out on the sidewalks during a quake. One man was buried under a heavy concrete beam and rescued by the only salvage truck in the city.

[12:57]At the first shake, the front wall fell out, and in subsequent heavy shakes, caught fire.

[13:07]This modern building was damaged by the collapse of the building next to it.

[13:23]The two-floored building in the center is still in use today. Another view of the remains of the five-floored hotel.

[13:42]The clock tower of the Hastings Post Office was 20 meters high. As you see, it dragged much of the building down with it. The heavy bells of the clock were hurled 30 meters out into the street. In the first mail delivery after the quake, the income tax demands were sent out.

[14:02]There was no earthquake building code in force in New Zealand at the time of the disaster. The faith of the people in the district is shown by the two new cities which arose from the ruins of the old, constructed to a rigid building code.