Story: Historic earthquakes

Men search for bodies in Napier. They had nothing more than shovels to work with as no earth-moving equipment was immediately available. Kenneth Spiller, speaking in this sound clip, was part of a group who attempted to rescue a woman trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building after the main tremors struck. As the fires spread towards them, he noticed how flimsily some of the buildings had been constructed.

Transcript

The brickwork and that in the buildings in Napier at the time of the earthquake, they were just hopeless on then. You could hit hit hit the bricks and just the bricks didn't burst but the mortar that held them together? I think they'd forgotten to put the cement in them and they made - once you could give a bit of just a clout and the mortar would just break up just like sand you know.