Jump to content

File:1931 Hawkes Bay Earthquake (24629925176).jpg

Page contents not supported in other languages.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original file (1,088 × 1,469 pixels, file size: 290 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Summary

Description

To mark the 85th anniversary of New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster, Archives New Zealand will be sharing a number of records via their social media channels this week.

The 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, also known as the Napier earthquake, occurred in New Zealand at 10:47 am on Tuesday 3 February 1931, killing 256 and devastating the Hawke's Bay region. It remains New Zealand's deadliest natural disaster. Centred 15 km north of Napier, it lasted for two and a half minutes and measured magnitude 7.8. There were 525 aftershocks recorded in the following two weeks. The main shock could be felt in much of the southern half of the North Island. Nearly all buildings in the central areas of Napier and Hastings were levelled.

The local landscape changed dramatically, with the coastal areas around Napier being lifted by around two metres. The most noticeable land change was the uplifting of some 40 km² of sea-bed to become dry land. This included Ahuriri Lagoon, which was lifted more than 2.7 metres and resulted in draining 2230 hectares of the lagoon. Today, this area is the location of Hawkes Bay Airport, housing and industrial developments and farmland. The death toll might have been much higher had the Royal Navy ship HMS Veronica not been in port at the time. Within minutes of the shock the Veronica had sent radio messages asking for help. The sailors joined survivors to fight the fires, rescue trapped people and help give them medical treatment. The Veronica's radio was used to transmit news of the disaster to the outside world and to seek assistance. The crew from two cargo ships, the Northumberland and Taranaki, also joined the rescue works, while two cruisers, HMS Diomede and HMS Dunedin, were dispatched from Auckland that afternoon with food, tents, medicine, blankets, and a team of doctors and nurses. The cruisers sailed at high speed overnight, arrived on 4 February and provided valuable assistance in all areas until their departure on 11 February.

The earthquake prompted a thorough review of New Zealand building codes, which were found to be totally inadequate. Many buildings built during the 1930s and 1940s are heavily reinforced, although more recent research has developed other strengthening techniques. To this day there are few buildings in Hawke's Bay taller than five stories, and as most of Napier's rebuilding took place in the 1930s when Art Deco was fashionable, Napier architecture is regarded today as being one of the finest collections of Art Deco in the world. Hastings was also rebuilt with many Art Deco and Spanish Mission style buildings.

Archives New Zealand hold a number of records relating to the disaster from a range of agencies. A quick search for ‘Hawkes Bay Disaster’ on the Archives New Zealand finding aid Archway brings up files created by the Treasury Department; Army Department; Land Information New Zealand and the Governor series just to name a few. Researchers will notice that new functionality has been added to Archway. You can now send enquiries about records directly through Archway using the new ‘Enquire About This Item’ field. This field is located on the record information page, next to the ‘Arrange To View This Item’ field www.archway.archives.govt.nz/

The image shown here was transferred to Archives New Zealand by the Works Consultancy Group.

Reference: ABKK 24414 W4358 533 /15825

www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=23459077

For further enquiries please email Research.Archives@dia.govt.nz

Material from Archives New Zealand
Date
Source 1931 Hawkes Bay Earthquake
Author Archives New Zealand from New Zealand

Licensing

Public domain
This New Zealand work is in the public domain in New Zealand, because its copyright has expired or it is not subject to copyright (details). According to the New Zealand Copyright Act of 1994 as elaborated on by the Standing Committee on Copyright of the Library and Information Association of New Zealand (LIANZA), as of May 2011:
Type of material Copyright has expired if ...
 A  For photographs, manuscripts, archives, music scores, maps, paintings, and drawings published anonymously, under a pseudonym or the creator is unknown: photo taken or work published prior to
1 January 1974 (50 years ago)
 B  Any works by the Crown (see Crown copyright) dated 1944 or earlier
 C  Published works1 by the Crown after 1945 No works1 until 2045
 D  For photographs, manuscripts, archives, music scores, maps, paintings, and drawings (except A-C) Creator died before 1 January 1974 (50 years ago)
 E  For oral histories, music, computer-generated work and spoken word sound recordings Released before 1 January 1974 (50 years ago)
 F  Published editions2 Released before 1 January 1999 (25 years ago)

1 Some government publications are not subject to copyright, including bills, acts, regulations, court judgments, royal commission and select committee reports, etc. See references [1] or [2] for the full list.
2 means the typographical arrangement and layout of a published work. eg. newsprint.


You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States.
New Zealand
New Zealand
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution share alike
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
  • share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
This image was originally posted to Flickr by Archives New Zealand at https://flickr.com/photos/35759981@N08/24629925176. It was reviewed on 8 September 2016 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.

8 September 2016

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

18 January 2016

image/jpeg

e45b8ddc3739694cf84988bc8fbcb33efc0b3266

296,802 byte

1,469 pixel

1,088 pixel

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current20:44, 8 September 2016Thumbnail for version as of 20:44, 8 September 20161,088 × 1,469 (290 KB)Vanished Account ByeznhpyxeuztibuoTransferred from Flickr via Flickr2Commons

The following page uses this file:

Metadata