Earthquake Commission IQ

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1931 Napier Earthquake

The morning of 3 February 1931 was just like any other morning in eastern Hawke’s Bay.

The people of Napier and Hastings were going about their normal business. But under their feet, over thousands of years, the Hawke Bay-Napier fault had been accumulating pressure. At 10.47am the fault lost its ability to withstand the strain and below the surface it started to slip and unleash enormous energy. The resulting earthquake measured an enormous 7.8 on the Richter scale.

The ground lurched in every direction. People were thrown to the ground, fountains of sand and mud erupted from beneath paddocks and streets, and buildings swayed until they could stand the shaking no longer and collapsed.

Every house in Napier had been damaged in some way and anything that was not well secured was brought down. Whole buildings had been shaken into piles of rubble. Others were resting at strange angles or had large parts of their structures in tatters around them.

Shakespeare Road, Napier  (Alexander Turnbull Library)

What wasn’t destroyed by the earthquake was later
consumed by fires.

Small fires broke out throughout the town and became raging infernos that were difficult to extinguish. The fires, fanned by sea breezes, burned virtually uncontrolled in Napier town for two days. When the fires were finally put out and the missing people recovered from collapsed and damaged buildings, it was found that 256 people had lost their lives: 161 in Napier, 93 in Hastings, and two in Wairoa.

The shaking generated from the Hawke’s Bay earthquake lasted for almost two full minutes – an experience that was never to be forgotten by those who survived it.

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