Editorial: New insight on saddest day in Bay

An 81st anniversary might not have a ring to it, but remembrance of Hawke's Bay's 1931 earthquake has never seemed more poignant in my lifetime than today.

Like many born and raised in this province I became aware of the earthquake, New Zealand's most deadly natural disaster, at a young age.

My paternal grandfather, "Rangi" Harding, was a mercer at 110 Heretaunga St East. According to Michael Fowler in From Disaster to Recovery: The Hastings CBD 1931-35 his "young shop assistant, Charles Drummond, ran out of the side entrance of the fabric store, only to be killed instantly by falling bricks from the Grand Hotel".

My grandfather escaped out the front of the building, which was destroyed by fire that night. His records were destroyed, including lists of those who owed him money, some of which was never recovered.

My late father said that while the business carried on for some years, it never fully recovered. He was 4 years old at the time and remembered the chimney on his Duchess Cres house falling down near him.

Across in Napier, my maternal grandmother ended up on Bluff Hill. So affected was she by the earthquake that in later years, whenever the ground shook, her "legs went to jelly and she slumped on the floor", my mother said.

Despite those stories having been told to me since I was a boy, the reality of what happened that day had never truly sunk in until recently.

Even a heavily shaking restaurant on Havelock Rd on the night of the 6.8 Gisborne earthquake in 2007 failed to move me from my seat.

That blase attitude ended soon after the 80th anniversary of the 7.8 quake which claimed at least 258 lives.

For the tragic loss of life, damage and ongoing trauma caused by the 6.3 Canterbury earthquake on February 22 last year gave us a modern day, and close to home, insight into what happened in our province 81 years ago today.

The fragility of our lives became clearer, as did the real danger posed by daytime shakes.

It is not ironic that last night a 4.3 magnitude earthquake struck Hawke's Bay, while this morning a 5.7 earthquake was recorded on the West Coast, 90km south of Opunake. Thousands of similar shakes hit this country every year.

I never knew my grandfather, but today, for the first time, I feel real emotion for him and what he went through.

In Hastings this morning there will be a remembrance service for the earthquake that devastated our communities. I will be listening for the bells on the clock tower at 10.47am.