Coroner's verdict on death of Louis Edgar in 2016 Kaikōura quake

Chelsea Boyle is a reporter for the New Zealand Herald·NZ Herald·

12 Dec, 2018 09:21 PM2 mins to read

Louis Edgar was killed when the historic Elms homestead collapsed. Photo / Mike Scott

A man who died of crush injuries was trying to escape the historic Elms Homestead as it toppled down during the 7.8-magnitude Kaikōura earthquake.

The coroner's report into the death of Albert Louis Edgar has been released today, more than two years after he was killed in the violent quake on November 14, 2016.

The devastating tremor hit just after midnight, cutting off the seaside tourist town and changing the pristine area's landscape, and seascape, forever.

The 74-year-old, known as Louis, was one of two fatalities in the disaster.

The other was Jo-Anne MacKinnon, who died in her Mt Lyford home after receiving a head injury.

Coroner Marcus Elliott said that Edgar died in a two-storey homestead that was first built in the 1870s with unreinforced concrete that contained river shingle.

The coroner found that no building consents or code compliance certificates had been issued for the building since at least 1944.

Any records prior to that year had been destroyed in a fire at the council building.

"Mr Edgar's death highlights the dangers associated with the collapse of old buildings in an earthquake," the coroner said.

"The failure of such buildings resulted in the deaths of 39 people in the earthquake in Christchurch on February 22, 2011.

"People who use and occupy buildings constructed of unreinforced masonry face the risk of injury or death in a large earthquake."

In the coroner's report, Edgar's wife Pam told police about the horrifying moments the earthquake tore a part the home they shared with his mother Margaret Edgar.