Story: Tsunamis

On 26 May 1960, three days after a tsunami from an earthquake in Chile caused damage along the New Zealand coast, a radio message warned that a tsunami from a major aftershock of that earthquake was about to hit the coast. These cars are jamming Hillcrest Road on the hillside above Whakatāne, after the evacuation.

Don Ross, harbour master at Whitianga, recalls the problems of evacuating Whitianga.

Transcript

They thought that a major wave would come, you know, near the end of it gets one big wave and they thought it was gonna happen so they said if the siren rang it could've been on its way and town was to be evacuated so they did this and that had its humorous things too cos I was down on the waterfront when it happened. The siren went well I've never seen people run like it! I saw one fella with a push bike and he had a life he had a life belt on his pushbike and he was making out of town and another fellow had one of the old type of V8s with a sharp bottle nose and I forget it was about a '37 or '38 V8. And when I, as I came home he was cranking it. And the engine was going and he this guy was still cranking it and I said, your engines going Jim and he pulled about four five feet of crank handle that a long crank and I mean through it straight through the window in the back window into the back seat, broke the window and took off. And one of the fishermen had a brand new Ford and he said to me, would you take my car out if this big wave comes with you take my car out and take your wife and the child, he said I'm taking my boat to sea. So he left it along side my house and I picked my wife up and we started out of the town and I caught up coming just out of the town I got up to a local grocer who had an old bread van and I caught up to it and he was on the shingley road you see and cos when I come behind him I tooted, he must've thought the wave was behind him and I've never seen a bread band go so fast! But that was, an old V8 with the transverse springs you know, his kids were in the back getting sloshed[?] from side the side. Cos he thought that if the wave court him up he'd have no show, you know. But I had and there was another and of course people had their cars and they said, well we'll pick up, you know, Mrs Brown, Mrs Smith and Chris they'll pick these people up and they found that people to come in and they had a goat, they were putting a goat in the back and cats and there was cats and things fighting in the back of the cars and had a lot of humour stories too, you know.