Locals recount the 'primal' quake that struck the heart and kept returning
Friday, 2 September 2016
As the last rays of sun dipped behind the snow-scattered flanks of Mt Hikurangi, and the tide approached its evening high, the people of Hicks Bay were winding down and wondering what might have been.
The soft waves rolling up the broad sandy beach are a far cry from the massive jolt that struck 55 kilometres beneath the sea floor just 130km northeast of here.
They're used to quakes in these parts and, while reactions were mixed, nearly everyone knew this was one that meant they needed to evacuate.
Nearly all described it as a long, slow rolling movement akin to being on a boat, and not enough to wreak much havoc.
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Born and bred local Rangi Tihore was tempted to stay in bed. The dogs and birds weren't worried, and he took that to be a sign of safety. 'They have better radar than any tsunami warning,' he said.
Daughter Moerangi had other plans. While the quake was loud, she was louder, and he agreed to take them up the hill to Hicks Bay motel. There they found most of the town, some in the bar drinking coffee, others asleep in their cars.
The experience wasn't enough to discourage Tihore from going for a fruitful dive at midday, which netted ten paua and four crays.
Motel owner Jody Campbell was among those in the 'petrified' camp.
'It was so primal. You felt it come up your body and into your heart. It'd go, then you'd get an aftershock,' she said.
Les Hoerara, living in the house that has been the family home since it was his great-grandfather's, was jolted awake by the 7.1-magnitude shake.
He said to brother Rawiri, 'We better go, eh bro?'. 'Yeah, we better go,' Rawiri replied.
Among the dozens of photos on the shelves in their house, only one fell – the one of their great-grandfather Rawiri Bristow.
'He tohu tena,' Les said. 'It means, 'It's a sign of something to come'. But in this case it had already been, hopefully.'
At the northern end of the bay, in the mammoth old crumbling shell of the former Hicks Bay meatworks, in which he's made his home, John Roberts said he felt a bit worried when the shaking wouldn't stop.
'Any bigger and I think it might have started to crumble and bits would have fallen off.'
He and his partner didn't leave.
Hicks Bay School principal Campbell Dewes said the locals were used to evacuating. Quakes and cyclones come with the turf.
'We were brought up on tales of quakes that made bluffs come down and all the men would get their shovels out to clear the road. We're a long way from everything out here, so we've got to be pretty resourceful.'
Down the road in Te Araroa, Kereama Henderson said everything had changed from when he was a kid. Back then everyone rushed to the beach to see if there was a tidal wave.
'They're good solid houses up here. Native timber. Lucky we're not in Italy.'
Constable James Garbett, whose beat covers the area, was calming down after a hectic morning. He couldn't have been more pleased with how the communities reacted and made for higher ground.
'From up there you can see the currents off the coast. Not long after that 30cm wave was supposed to have hit, you could see this big whirlpool out there in the bay. It lasted 20 minutes,' he said.
The quake was felt from Northland to Wellington in the North Island, and in the top of the South Island. Severe reports were felt in Gisborne and the Bay of Plenty.
There have been well over 100 aftershocks, including one 6.2 aftershock at 5.14am and a 6.0 at 8.06am.
The United States Geological Survey said the east of the North Island had a history of large quakes along the plate boundary, and seismic activity was particularly high in the Kermadec region.
Within a 250km radius of Friday's shake, there were 28 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger during the 20th century.