Rev. E. Nicholls
NZ Baptist - March 1931

Tuesday, February 3, 1931, will be a day never to be forgotten by us in Hastings. I had arrived home the previous night from my annual holiday, feeling fit and fresh for the year's work. Having spent a few hours in my study, I was preparing to depart upon the tour of visitation of the sick, when suddenly I was flung off my feet. The upheaval was tremendous. Everything around me was falling and smashing. I managed to crawl to the front door, there to be confronted by the sight of a lady visitor holding on to the veranda, and my wife and eldest daughter on their hands and knees endeavouring to dodge a shower of falling bricks. One cemented batch of bricks crushed the heels of my wife's shoes, missing her by inches. With thankfulness to God for spared lives, I left my family and cycled quickly into the town, only to find it a town of death.

With one mighty upheaval it had become a vast charnel house. Its streets were dust-filled gullies, into which sank the remains of shops and stores. Three-storied buildings crumbled with a deafening roar, vomiting great masses of debris in all directions and trapping many. Heretaunga Street, the main thoroughfare, was transformed into a ruin, beneath which could be heard the cries of women and children, giving place to a silence such as might creep over some alpine slope after the passing roar of an avalanche. The destruction was complete. It seemed that even time itself had been obliterated by the upheaval, as for one horrified moment the whole town was wrapped in a death-like silence.

The upheaval had come without warning, and its momentary passing left everyone spellbound. Dozens who had rushed out of buildings were buried beneath bricks and mortar as soon as they gained the footpath. The centre of all streets was littered within a few moments with a tangled mass of telephone and electric light wires, veranda poles, great masses of concrete, and furniture hurled from shops and offices. From every direction came the screams of men and women. Children were crying piteously beneath the ruins of one of the shops. Nothing could be done for them, and it was not long before they were swallowed up in the flames that engulfed the area. It was with cruel suddenness that the first and most devastating shake occurred shortly before 11 o'clock in the morning. Within a minute Hastings had been almost completely razed to the ground. People were caught like rats in a trap. Buildings crumpled as if swept aside by the hand of a giant, and horrified people were surrounded by the wreckage of what had a moment before been a flourishing town. Following close upon the earthquake, parts of the town were swallowed up in flames. Fire raged in several great piles of debris, and spreading to buildings that had not been greatly damaged, it swept through them unchecked.

Shakes of various magnitude occurred with little interruption, and at 9 o'clock in the evening, 1000 people in the wrecked streets were struck motionless by another shake almost as heavy as the first disastrous upheaval. This cut off the water supply, and the fire raged with even greater vigour. None would go inside buildings. As the night advanced the stricken town became lighted with the hopeless glow of its own funeral pyre. There was no thought of sleep. Families refused to return to their houses, and mattresses were taken into the centre of the roadways for the night.

The quake has been a great leveller, a great influence in bringing out all that is friendly in man's nature. Your neighbour's lawn is yours to camp on and your billy of hot water is his. It is touching beyond all words to live here and see and hear about the thoughtful kindness of those that live in other places, and were strangers yesterday. Those that are helping may rest assured that their help is wanted, and that it is appreciated to the very uttermost. Not an hour passes without one coming to know some fresh instance of thoughtful kindness, or without hearing people that belong here speaking with no little touch of tenderness of the kindness that the whole Dominion has so promptly and so copiously shown.

I pass over the scenes at the mortuary hospital and the cemetery, except to say that each denomination had a minister on duty during the whole of the time that those for interment were being despatched from the mortuary hospital for burial. Without exception every one deceased is buried in his or her church plots set aside for the different denominations. Crosses are being erected over every grave, with the names of victims painted thereon.

Fortunately, our church buildings are intact, with the exception of a crack in the concrete in the front of the church, which we hope will not prove serious. We are deeply grieved at the loss sustained by our mother Church in Napier, also for our sister churches in our own town. No public gatherings in buildings are allowed. The result is we are meeting each Sunday in the various parks for united open-air services. The Governor-General was present with us at our united memorial service on the Sunday following the earthquake. His words were like apples of gold in baskets of silver, beautiful and appropriate. Thank God for such a Governor. Our beautiful town is crippled. Our homes are impoverished; the long view does not come easily to the bereaved. However, our hearts are brave, and the process of rehabilitation has begun. Upon us hangs the punishing weight of material damage, of wealth destroyed. But the mood of despair never bred anything useful or constructive. It is the hope that springs eternal that helps and that will rebuild Napier and Hastings. One of our members, Mrs K. J. Pearson, was killed in Napier, and several people connected with the congregation suffered bereavements. Our sympathy goes out to their loved ones in their great grief.

Mrs Schofield was badly injured with a compound fracture to her leg. Mrs Shakespeare and Mr Frank Barley received severe head injuries. Many others received minor injuries, others had marvellous escapes from falling debris; others have suffered large material losses, especially the Messrs E. and V. Westermann, with whom we sympathise. And what shall I more say? For the time would fail me to tell of lost positions, depleted incomes, ruined personal possessions, but through faith we hope to wax valiant in fight, and out of weakness to be made strong.

We are refreshed and inspired by the visits of representatives from our Baptist Union, and Auckland and Wellington Auxiliaries—Rev. M. W. P. Lascelles, Mr J. R. Carey and son, Mr E. Nees, Rev. J. Hiddlestone, and Mr F Gaze. The Auckland Auxiliary's financial assistance for the distressed, likewise Oxford Terrace, is and will be a great source of comfort and help to us in our impoverished condition. The Baptist Union's offer to stand behind our church finances has put fresh heart into us. Personally, I am deeply grateful to them all, also for wires and letters of sympathy and inquiry, also personal visits from ministerial brethren. I beg the prayers of our people. Things will be abnormal here for a long while. There has been a removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made, that those things that cannot be shaken may remain.