Here is an account of this event off the internet. As we all know we have our own story about this as well. There have been bigger quakes before and since, one notable quake on 20/12/07 caused three buildings to collapse, and many more damaged.
- Bruce, Steve, Martin were in the car
- Kerrian was in a Chemist Shop with Olly, and a man picked her up and stood in the doorway with her.
- Olly looked on in shock as the car appeared to lift up, but in reality just started to roll into the kerb, with Burce at the wheel. Elecgtricity transformer was seen swaying above our car
- Olive regards this as one of her worst experiences of her life, seeing us all in danger like that
- Patrick was riding his bike without holding the handle bars, and the quake caused him to fall off and his thought was "mum was always telling me not to ride like that or else I would fall off"
- we were on the way to buy fruit and Olly saw the road rippling, which turned out to be an aftershock.
- it was Gala Day at WBS - the Merry Go Round collapsed while being erected
The Gisborne Earthquake of 1966. Part 1: The Experience
Saturday the 5th of March 1966 started like any other late summer Saturday morning. Dairies were open for their weekend trade, but in Gisborne the town shops and offices remained closed as they always did in the days before the liberalisation of weekend trading.
At people’s homes, the weekend’s housework had begun. With the weather being fine, agitator washing machines were grunting away, churning through the week’s clothes and linen. Some were moving through their houses with buzzing vacuum cleaners like our old Goblin Ace – a black tubular thing on plastic wheels which had a mind of its own and more wheeze than suck.
Crashes and bangs came from the town’s kitchens as ovens were wiped out, the big old fridges of the time were de-iced, and benchtops were wiped down.
Out in the sunshine, there was the “swiiiish” of push mowers as they were pushed in short sweeps across lawns, and the steady buzz of motormowers being paraded about. There was the clank of gardening tools, thump of handymen’s hammers, and the sound of cars passing by.
The was the odd “Oooh-oooh” of neighbour announcing their visit to a neighbour, and the patter of quiet conversation punctuated by shouted instructions and admonishments to children playing outside.
As the morning wore on, preparations were made for lunch, and sash windows were thrown up with a clank of window weights to welcome in the gentle breeze.
At 1 minute to noon, I was standing on a stool adjusting some ornaments on a shelf in my room. Abruptly, the ornaments were thrown over and I was catapulted to the floor. Suddenly, the roofing iron began a terrific rumbling as if someone was shaking it like a huge mat and the window weights began battering against the inside of the walls as they emitted bell-like clangs.
The house had been built toward the end of the 19th century by local solicitor and later judge of the Native Land Court, Robert Noble Jones. It had four main bedrooms, a servant’s bedroom, a formal dining room and linen pantry, a sitting room, and a vast kitchen. Over time, verandahs had been built in to add a dressing room and another bedroom, but the old coach-house and stables still remained along with an additional outside water closet at the back.
Most of the rest of the family were in the kitchen at the far end of the house when the earthquake hit with a great thump. Then the swaying began, to the sound of rumbles from under the house and from the roof above. My mother was standing at the stove at the time, and my brother recalls her holding onto the handle of the oven door to try and steady herself. He remembers her swaying back and forth on her heels as the oven door opened and closed with the swaying of the house.
Suddenly the fridge burst open and food began falling out as the door waved to and fro. It seems that some of the kitchen cupboards lost their contents, but the sight of the fridge ejecting its contents is one that stands out.
The next few minutes were confused as the swaying ceased and people regained their senses. The various members of the family were rounded up and assessed. There were no injuries to any of us, except our frayed nerves.
In my case, I can remember my mother calling me anxiously from the far end of the house. My first thought was that we were in the midst of a hurricane because of the great rumbling of the roofing iron. As I sped off down the hall, I wondered why the weather forecasters hadn’t warned us!
It was a huge house with 14-foot high ceilings and grand arches in the main hall where we could play cricket on wet winter days. I tore down the main hall and round the corner to the hall which contained the kitchen and bathrooms. I was grabbed and held under the kitchen door as the house slowly ceased shaking and silence descended.
In the melee, the formal dining room had settled as its massive totara piles sank into the softened ground – no more playing marbles in there on a wet day; for the next few years any marble pitched would roll over toward the wall of the adjoining kitchen. The house had three fireplaces, and all had sustained damage. The chimney above the formal dining room (known as the rumpus room in our day) had snapped and collapsed onto the roof. In the master bedroom, the fireplace appeared to have moved out from the wall by about half an inch, but in reality the wall had moved – not that we noticed it at the time. Both the master bedroom and sitting room chimneys had cracked at the top, and bricks had come loose.
All sorts of things had tumbled from shelves and cupboards, and water could be heard slopping back and forth in the huge water tanks far above our heads. Outside, long cracks had opened in the front lawn, but none of us thought of measuring them. Our rainwater tank outside the wash-house had survived, but its large wooden stand had settled and twisted. Presumably the large pipes feeding the wash-house tubs had held it largely in place.
Elsewhere in the suburb of Whataupoko, water mains had burst, windows had cracked, power lines had been torn from the front of houses, chimneys had cracked or collapsed, toilet pans had shattered, houses had slipped off foundations and numerous water tanks had slid on their supports and tank stands had partially collapsed.
Some people had the heart-stopping experience of their chimney crashing through their roof and into the house. Despite this, there were no serious injuries and only one heart attack was reported.
In the town centre, the few people at work had some hair-raising experiences. Filing cabinets, furniture and shelving were thrown over and a 10 ton printing press had moved backwards and forwards across the floor, several feet in each direction.
Practically every shop window on the south-east side of Peel Street had broken, cracked or slid in its frame. Gypsum tiles had fallen from business premises ceilings, and walls had cracked. Gaps had opened between floors and masonry walls and some buildings had suffered damage as neighbouring structures had hammered against them. Fortunately, no serious damage to modern buildings had occurred during the earthquake. However, some of the older buildings had suffered and those that had been poorly repaired during the bigger earthquakes of the 1930s showed the most damage.
The elegant opera house on the corner of Peel Street and Childers Road had large cracks in its outer walls. One wall of the Chief Post Office had moved outward, and both buildings were quickly roped-off to keep people out of harm’s way if they collapsed. Some of the older classrooms at Gisborne Boys’ High and Mangapapa schools sustained major damage, whereas the old Central School which had been strengthened by the attachment of external “corsetting” following the damage it sustained during the Wairoa quake of 1932 had come through largely unscathed.
The sewer line crossing the Peel Street bridge had broken, but the bridge itself survived the quake. The statue of a soldier atop the town’s war memorial had rotated but not toppled.
Back home, a quick appraisal of the damage was conducted, and a headcount was completed. There was just enough time to commence the cleanup of broken items before the first of the many aftershocks commenced. There had been 25 minutes of relative peace, and then the quivering began. For the next 11 hours there were earthquakes every few minutes as 225 aftershocks rattled the town.
Members of the family climbed up and across the steeply gabled rooves to demolish the tops of the three damaged chimneys. With the rumpus room chimney lying across the roof, my mother was worried that it would fall through into the house, so it had to be broken up and the bricks thrown over onto the lawn. While they were working up there, my sister and brother reported that the house was shivering and rattling underneath them as the many aftershocks occurred. Later in the afternoon, others were sent out to check on my grandmother and our neighbours.
My father had been away on surf rescue business and, on being alerted to news of a damaging earthquake in Gisborne late in the afternoon, had commenced the long trip back by road from New Plymouth. He had been unable to get through by phone, so it was an anxious night-time trip.
Later that night most of us crammed into our parents’ bedroom, not realising that the fireplace beside the bed now stood out from the wall. It was a restless night punctuated by the clanking of window weights; with almost constant quivers and shudders as the house creaked and rattled under the onslaught of the aftershocks. We were all woken by the noisy quake just after 1 a.m. but the bigger one just before 4 a.m. had us all on edge.
We were relieved when my father got home just before dawn, and the lightening sky meant we could drop any pretense of trying to sleep.
The Gisborne Earthquake of 1966. Part 2: Facts & Figures
The magnitude 6.2 earthquake which caused considerable damage in Gisborne on the 5th of March 1966 was centred within 20 km of the city at a depth of 25 km. It struck at 11h 58m 57s on a Saturday morning.
The earthquake provided an unique opportunity for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) to collaborate widely in studying the seismological aspects of the earthquake, the geology of the area, damage to services as well as damage to both public and private buildings. The department published a detailed bulletin covering these aspects of the quake, which provides the basis for this article. [see New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Bulletin 194, Gisborne Earthquake New Zealand March 1966, published 1969.] Contributors came from the DSIR itself, the Ministry of Works, local council, and the Earthquake and War Damage Commission.
Unlike previous strong earthquakes, the DSIR’s network of seismometers was more developed in 1966, and the existence of seismometers at Tuai power station inland from Gisborne, East Cape and Gisborne greatly aided in analysis of the many earthquakes recorded in the period February to June 1966 even though their galvanometers stuck after many of the large events. In addition, the presence of an acceleration recorder at the Gisborne Telephone Exchange provided extra information on the direction and strength of ground pulses during the earthquake.
There were 50 recognisable foreshocks that commenced at 9:30 pm on February 2nd with the last occurring 43 minutes before the main earthquake on March 5th. Most would not have been felt, but the pair of magnitude 4 events 28 minutes apart on the evening of February 5th would have been noticed by many residents.
Following the magnitude 6.2 quake, there was 25 minutes of peace before the aftershocks commenced. During the remainder of March 5th, there were 225 aftershocks; the largest that day were two magnitude 4.5 shakes, the first occurring 30 minutes after the main quake, the second at 11:40 that night. The following day, there were 83 aftershocks, including a magnitude 5 and two magnitude 4 events. Daily aftershock rates then eased back, with 466 occurring during March and a total of 513 events being recorded until the end of May.
The Ministry of Works report noted: “Generally damage was confined to an area ½ mile [800 m] wide on both sides of Turanganui and Taruheru Rivers and extending about 2 ½ miles [4 km] up from the mouths. This included the main city area on the west and the Whataupoko area on the east of the rivers.” It added that many of the older buildings had been damaged in the 1931 Hawke’s Bay and 1932 Wairoa earthquakes.
At the time of the earthquake, electric power was lost for about 10 minutes in the city, as power lines clashed and mercury tubes in transformers broke. There were 151 service-line faults to houses due to clashing of wires and pulling-off of barge boards.
There were about a dozen watermain leaks and 40 service leaks. The sewer crossing the Peel Street bridge broke, and sewerage was diverted into the Taruheru River until Sunday morning.
During the main earthquake, the acceleration recorder on the ground floor of the telephone exchange recorded a maximum acceleration of 0.28 g towards the north-north-east. The device recorded 7 acceleration pulses between 0.1 g and 0.3 g, and a further 5 or 6 pulses of about 0.1 g. Writing about the largest pulse, R.I. Skinner of the DSIR’s Physics & Engineering Laboratory stated, “This acceleration is surprisingly high in relation to the moderate damage to city buildings. The damage was limited by the short duration of severe shaking and probably also by shaking at periods long compared with the resonance period of most of the structures.” Gisborne had been lucky.
Even so, the earthquake had managed to rack up a large amount of damage in a short period of time. Approximately 3,000 chimneys required repair or replacement, and the Earthquake and War Damage Commission received insurance claims for 700 of them. The commission noted, “Most of the chimneys were cracked at roof line; many others were cracked at ceiling level or required renewal from about 18 in. [460 mm] below the roof. Damage was greater on chimneys that had been fitted with TV aerials.” Both the commission and the Ministry of Works noted that 20 newer pre-cast chimneys also sustained damage just above foundation level. Similar damage to pre-cast chimneys was noted as a result of the Seddon earthquake the following month.
The Ministry of Works report included the following amongst its conclusions: “In an age when man is close to landing on the moon we still have not designed, in New Zealand, a low-cost earthquake-resistant domestic chimney, nor a satisfactory W.C. soil-pipe connection. The bulk of the claims at Gisborne were for replacement of domestic chimneys. It seems wasteful to replace them with identical ones, which will fail in the next earthquake and possibly also cause loss of life.” About 150 toilet pans had to be replaced after the Gisborne earthquake.
The reports noted that houses had moved off their foundations, water tanks and stands had been damaged, as had rooves and wall linings. Claims made on the Earthquake and War Damage Commission (now known as EQC) totalled 1,890 costing $265,732.
Several public buildings sustained severe damage, the worst being the Chief Post Office on the corner of Customhouse Street and Gladstone Road. The first stage had been built in 1901, with additions added in 1925. Following the 1931 earthquake, the clock tower had been removed, and brick gables had been reduced in height. Cracks that had appeared in 1931 had been repaired, but they re-opened in 1966, and the wall facing Customhouse Street moved out by 2 inches (50 mm) at the roof level. Several arches were badly cracked and fresh cracks opened up on two other walls. The building was not considered economical to repair and it was demolished.
The infant block at the Mangapapa School had also been strengthened after the 1931 earthquake. A post-quake inspection detected movement of a tie-beam and additional cracks over door openings. It was recommended that the building was not used until several strengthening measures were taken. Fortunately, the education board decided that its money would be better spent on demolition and replacement with a timber structure, as part 3 of this series of articles will show.
The northern wing of Gisborne Boys’ High School suffered damage, and two classrooms were temporarily closed. However, on re-inspection it was determined that some of the damage was due to weathering, and the classrooms were able to be re-used but it was recommended that they be replaced as soon as practicable.
At the city’s Cook Hospital, plaster fell in the wards and some concrete lintels over doorways and in corridors cracked at mid-span. The elderly building had also been strengthened after the Hawke’s Bay quake of 1931, but subsequent building work had weakened some of these measures – one of the tie rods had been cut through and a concrete beam over the corridor had been seriously weakened by partial removal.
Commercial buildings suffered too. One building displayed cracks up to ¾ inch [19 mm] wide while another had cracked window arches and a gable which had moved out by 3½ inches [89 mm] to a precarious position. Another building’s roof was near collapse.
Even the monument to Captain Cook didn’t escape, with one of its massive stones moving outward.
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