A printed sign from the days following the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake, forbidding casual motorists from tacking the dangerous roads to Hastings and Napier. Photo / Central Hawke’s Bay Museum
A printed sign from the days following the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake, forbidding casual motorists from tacking the dangerous roads to Hastings and Napier. Photo / Central Hawke’s Bay Museum
My grandmother was a survivor of what she called “The 31 Shake”.
We know it now as the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake, the magnitude 7.8 quake centred 15 km north of Napier, which struck at 10.47am on February 3, 1931.
Gran was at school in Taradale when the earthquake struck, and as soon as she could she ran for home. On the way she met her father, who was running to look for her.
It was the last she saw of her father for weeks. As a police constable, he was part of the lengthy rescue and clean-up process, coming home late each evening and going out again before dawn the next day.
The earthquake - and its nearly 600 aftershocks - left its mark on Gran.
Staying with my grandparents in their Waipawa home in the school holidays, I would be woken in the night by Gran clutching me firmly to her bosom as the old house creaked and the sash windows rattled, while she loudly reassured me “it’s all right, it’s just an earthquake ... it’s only an earthquake ...”
We kids were often woken by Gran’s earthquakes, which we would otherwise probably have slept through. She also had a disconcerting way of looking at the sky, pondering for a moment and pronouncing it “earthquake weather”.
The Hawke’s Bay Earthquake devastated the towns of Napier and Hastings and left an official death toll of 256, with more than 400 injured.
Boot repairer Stephen Burkin was badly injured in the collapse of his shop in Ruataniwha St, Waipawa. Photo / Central Hawke’s Bay Museum
In Central Hawke’s Bay, homes and businesses suffered extensive damage, with 900 chimneys downed in Waipukurau alone, the Post Office clock tower collapsing and brick shop frontages coming down. The whole side wall of the Tavistock Hotel collapsed, revealing the hotel’s furnished rooms to passers-by.
The side wall of Waipukurau’s picture theatre bulged outwards and a fruiterer’s shop in the main street collapsed.
In Waipawa, newspaper reports state “nearly every business place in the town was wrecked”, with the frontage of the HB Farmers’ Co-operative warehouse thrown across the street.
Father of four, boot repairer Stephen Burkin was badly injured in the collapse of his shop in Ruataniwha St.
A later newspaper obituary describes “the end wall of Bibby’s building falling onto the roof of Mr Burkin’s shop, smashing through the iron and pinning him under the debris”.
When he was pulled free, “willing hands having speedily responded to his cries for help”, it became apparent he had received a very serious injury.
His spine was broken, leaving him paralysed from the waist down.
The spinal injury caused health complications and Burkin later died at the Waipukurau Hospital in January 1933 - just before the two-year anniversary of the quake.
He was 49 years old.
The lower frontage of Limbricks building in the main street of Waipawa collapsed. The building survived and is still standing and in use today. Photo / Central Hawke’s Bay Museum
Several other Central Hawke’s Bay people lost their lives in Hastings and Napier, including Waipawa photographer Thomas Shackleford’s son Leonard, who was killed in the collapse of Roache’s store in Hastings where he was working in the hardware department.
Ellen Ashford, a kitchen maid from Tikokino, suffered fatal injuries in Hastings’ Grand Hotel, Waipukurau widow Mary Ann Blackburn was a patient in Napier Hospital when she was fatally injured by the earthquake, and Pōrangahau woman Henrietta Kelly was listed as missing from Napier’s Masonic Hotel.
Mr R McLean was the mayor of Waipukurau at the time of the earthquake. He arranged to have an emergency relief depot set up, with the whole town pitching in alongside the Red Cross to help refugees fleeing from Napier and Hastings.
Transport was commandeered for volunteers to go through to Hastings to help dig in the rubble for survivors.
Within hours of the earthquake, Waipukurau had become an important railhead. In the initial shaking, the southbound express train - just going through Takapau - was derailed, but the line was cleared within two hours and soon northbound trains were arriving into the Waipukurau station with food, medical and surgical supplies, tents and bedding.
A newspaper report at the time describes the Waipukurau railway yard as becoming the “principal and most inportant railway centre in the Dominion”, with porters, train crews and shunters working for 16 hours at a stretch to get urgent supplies on their way to Hastings and Napier.
With railway lines and bridges north of Waipukurau destroyed or damaged, the goods were then loaded onto lorries and vehicles of all descriptions, and driven the rest of the way.
At the same time there was an influx into Waipukurau from Hastings and Napier. Just over 200 people injured in the earthquake - some seriously - arrived in the town by motor vehicle, where they were transferred to special trains heading for Palmerston North and Wellington.
As well, more than 600 refugees were transferred onto trains at the Waipukurau railway station, heading to safety in other North Island towns.
Telephone lines were down north of Waipukurau, so telegrams were sent to Waipukurau by car to be “wired” to their destination. The Waipukurau telegraph office stayed open all night for people to send messages.
In Ōtāne there were no brick buildings, but the verandahs of businesses in the main street crashed into the roadway and all the crockery at the Railway Hotel was smashed into fragments. Nearly every concrete water tank was smashed, including at St Hilda’s Home where there were three 800-gallon tanks (more than 3000 litres).
Again, not a single brick chimney was left standing.
In the Waipukurau cemetery is a small child’s headstone, a memorial to Vera Johnston.
Vera was born prematurely in Hastings just a month before the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake, to young parents Robert and Mary Johnston. She had an older brother, toddler George.
The earthquake left the family with tiny and vulnerable baby Vera homeless, so they fled to Whanganui where they were taken in by Robert’s parents.
There, baby Vera came into the care of Whanganui’s Karitane nurses. Noting that Mary was stressed and exhausted they sent her to bed, taking the frail baby to the Karitane centre, where she was literally wrapped in cotton wool for warmth and nursed around the clock.
But all was not well between Mary and her mother-in-law. The older woman - who her remaining granddaughter Eunice calls “a dour woman” - would not hear of Mary taking to bed, or the baby being coddled by Karitane nurses.
Mary told her husband Robert she had to go home “even if it means sleeping in a tent at Nelson Park”.
The family headed for Hastings, but the tiny baby only made it part of the way. By the time they reached Waipukurau Vera was desperately ill and was admitted to the Waipukurau Hospital.
There, she died.
Vera was buried in the Waipukurau Cemetery. Her parents returned to Hastings, where they raised a family of 13 children.
Lost now found - premature baby Vera Johnston, a forgotten victim of the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake.
The tragic loss of baby Vera was rarely spoken of and none of her siblings knew where she was buried, until as adults they searched for their sister, found her and had a headstone placed on her grave: Vera Johnston, 12.1.1931 - 8.1.1931. Lost now found.
Saturday, February 3, will mark 93 years since the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake.
Services are being held in Napier and Hastings to commemorate the anniversary of New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster.
Napier City Council is planning a commemoration service at Waiapu Cathedral at noon during the anniversary.
It will double as a remembrance service for families affected by last year’s cyclone.
“The resilience of Napier people in 1931, looking after each other then moving on to rebuild, has been seen again in the actions of so many over the past year,” Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise said.
“The service is an opportunity to share some moments of reflection. The impacts on our city and people’s lives continue to be felt today.”
Commander Fiona Jameson and Lieutenant Commander Paul Eady, representing the Royal NZ Navy, will ring the Veronica Bell.
“The bell will be rung eight times in commemoration of those who lost their lives, followed by a minute’s silence, and eight times for those who emerged from the dust and ashes and took on the work of rebuilding our city,” Wise said.
The bell is from HMS Veronica, which was in port at the time of the earthquake.
Hastings service
Every year on February 3, Hastings commemorates the anniversary of the earthquake.
A special ceremony will be held next to the Hastings Clock Tower in the city centre at 10.30am.
Stories of how the event reshaped Hastings will be told and wreaths placed at the clock tower in memory of the lives lost in the earthquake.
