Hawke's Bay Earthquake

On Tuesday the 3rd February, 1931 a massive Earthquake struck Hawke's Bay. This Earthquake is known as the deadliest Earthquake in the history of New Zealand. It struck at 10:45am, which meant a lot of people were out and about.

Dawn McCormick was with her mother at the time as they were shopping for new shoes in town. she was very young but still remembers the day very clearly. When the quake struck she was pulled away from her mother and slammed into the footpath. Her mother was calling out to her the whole time to go to her but every time she would get close, the power of the quake would pull her away again. Luckily they were not hurt, her mother only had scratched legs and broken finger nails from where she had clawed the concrete to try and get to Dawn.

Declan also experienced the frightening Earthquake. He was in a building when it happened, when he felt the shakes he ran to the doorway... BAM!! part of the building fell on top of him. While he was underneath all the broken building he was praying that someone would save him, he didn't want to be buried alive. After a while he could feel the building being pulled from him, he saw two men helping him. Once it was clear, he sat up and smiled at the men that helped him, he felt relieved.

Not only was the Earthquake deadly but it started a number of fires. This caused many buildings and houses to be lost.

9 students, 12 nurses, a group of road workers and others lost their lives, altogether 258 people died and many more were injured.

I can not imagine how horrifying it was for the people involved especially the little ones. I hope we don't have another one that is as deadly.




By Tina