‘Nearly every business place was wrecked’
Ceremonies mark 93 years since Hawke's Bay Earthquake
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.
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’ Cooperative 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. 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