Story: Historic earthquakes

Tex Charteris remembers his experience on the Wairarapa coast during the June 1942 earthquake. Damage was widespread to roads and bridges in the region. Here a member of the Home Guard stands ready to warn travellers that the bridge is impassable.

Transcript

That Manuka beam cracked, and I was out the door and the sea was just a real bubbling mass. And then the other fellow that was in the troop but he was home, he rang up and he said, we answered him and he said, 'You have a look at the sea' he says, 'it's like a blue flame coming off the sea'. I said we can't see that here I said we got we could see it really bubbling. Two o'clock that morning two fellows asked us to do double duty while they went home to Featherstone, to see their homes. So we sanctioned that and they left their black retriever dog. So I thought we made us do, come on. And I said we're gonna have a cup of tea. So our batch was knocked around a bit you see, but not that much. Anyway, we put the billy on, make a cup of tea, I set some bricks up, the chimney was gone, so I sat some bricks up to make the fireplace had just got it going and the tea was just about ready to make and a bloomin big black retriever would (whining sound). She just went down. Now a building just collapsed in front of us.