Account of Earthquake of 8 Dec 1897 at Wanganui
by H. C. FIELD; Trans. of the NZ Institute 1897


I had been awake for a few minutes when, at about 2.40am, I
heard a low rumbling sound, such as might proceed from a doctor's
gig coming up the road on its way to the house of a sick person,
the direction being from the south-west as usual. Doubt as to
its character, however, was immediately set at rest by the
commencement of strong undulatory and oscillatory movements,
which rapidly increased in intensity, and in about a minute
were of extreme violence.

As I built my house myself, and my experience of the earthquake
of 1855 had shown me the necessity of buildings being well put
together, I had no fear of collapse, and therefore contented
myself with sitting up in bed to note what occurred.

When the vibrations had lasted about a minute, and seemed
slackening, the house seemed to give a sudden tremendous lurch
or plunge, as if falling over towards the north-west, followed
immediately by a similar and almost equally violent plunge 
towards the north-east.

By the first of these it is said that a heavy piano in a house
on St. John's Hill was sent almost across a room, whilst the
whole of the books on a neighbour's book-shelves were thrown
on the floor.

In my own house a heavy wooden bedstead, without castors, was
shifted about a foot from the all at its head, and a chest of
drawers about 4ft high, in another room, was thrown on its face.
Downstairs the books on the shelves were all displaced, the
upper and smaller ones to the extent of fully 3in., though none
were thrown down; articles of furniture were slightly moved, the
piano being shifted a hand's breadth from the wall; and, of
course, flower-vases and similar articles were thrown down or
broken.

Similar, though slighter, lurches to south-east and south-west
followed at intervals of about a second, it seemed evident that
this gyratory action arose from the earth settling down again to
its normal level after being upheaved by the undulatory
motion. After this the motion became extremely irregular, being
a compound of gyratory and oscillatory as it died away.

Nearly the whole of the chimneys in the houses around were thrown
down, or so damaged that they will have to be rebuilt, though
my own fortunately remained uninjured.

It is estimated that at least a thousand chimneys in the town
and suburbs will have to be rebuilt, and I think this is an
underestimate rather than otherwise, while, of course, those
similarly damaged in the country around will greatly increase
the number.

Those chimneys which were not thrown down are mostly broken
horizontally, their upper portions being twisted round, in some
cases at right angles to their original position.

A brick wall, 80ft long by 10ft high, bonded with hoop-iron,
which forms the north-east side of the Fruit-evaporating Works,
is split horizontally from end to end about half-way up, the
lower portion being forced outwards 2in. or 3in., while the
upper portion inclines inwards to about the same extent. The
end wall of the same building facing north-west was thrown
bodily outwards and shattered to pieces, while the arch of the
long evaporating-oven collapsed, the bricks falling on the
travelling table beneath.

Houses on brick or concrete foundations seem to be generally
slightly shifted and twisted aside, and in some cases the
foundations themselves are injured.

Much glass was broken in windows of shops and houses, and this
not by articles falling against it, but by the motion and
straining of the buildings. The gyratory lurches evidently
caused this, as the broken windows face in all directions.

The town water-mains are also evidently broken, though only
one small break has yet been located. Of course, the damage
to goods in the stores has been very great.

The nurses at the Hospital and others say that a vivid flash
of lightning immediately preceded the shock, and the same is
also stated in a letter since received from Feilding.

A neighbour told me to-day of the most curious effect of the
earthquake of which I have yet heard. A stream called the
Tauraroa flows into the Wanganui River from the northward about
nine miles above the town. The stream runs in a little gully
some 30ft or 40ft deep, and perhaps a couple of chains in width.
On the east of this there is a flat from 10 to 15 chains wide,
which forms the general level of the valley; and east of this
again there is a hill-face of over 400ft high, rising up to
the table-land, known as Stratford's Flat.

The flat in the valley has been for many years in grass, but I
learn that since the earthquake 2 or 3 acres of it, half a
mile or more from the river, appear as if they had been shot
violently upward into the air to some height, and fallen back
in fragments, as large lumps of papa, many of them several
feet in diameter, are scattered about in all directions, and
the grass has entirely disappeared from that area.

I suggested to my informant that possibly the damage might have
been caused by a large slip of the hill-face, but he said that
the face, which is covered with light bush, was unaltered, and
that the damage did not extend to the foot of it. In fact, he
said he was perfectly confident that the effect could only have
been produced by an explosive force acting from below. [This
turned out to be a slip caused by the earthquake - a full 
description is included in this paper.]

Several chimneys had been shaken down in the Upper Wangaehu
Valley, the farthest of which was at least fifty miles north-east
of Wanganui. Several houses in the Paraekaretu district, between
the Turakina River and Hunterville, and fully twenty miles east
of Wanganui, also lost their chimneys. In this locality, too, one
house which stands on sandy ground escaped injury, while those
all around were thus damaged. Chimneys were shaken down at
Waverly, twenty-five miles west of Wanganui.