'You Never Forget' - Napier's Deadly Earthquake

Nearly 90 Years On, Quake Memories Remain Eerily Vivid.

- Lynley Ward

Teresa Dooney clearly remembers the parting words of the woman she affectionately knew as Aunt Molly, uttered just hours before the deadly Napier earthquake.

It might be nearly nine decades later, but Teresa (95) recalls being handed a bag of sweets for running an errand, before heading to St Joseph’s School for the first day of term. “Aunt Molly said, ‘Now be good girls and don’t eat them on the way to school or you’ll be sick.’

“We had just gone out to play – we got our lollies out of our bags and moved away from the building – and the earthquake struck,” says Teresa, recounting

the terrifying moment at 10.47am on February 3, 1931, when the 7.8-magnitude tremor ruptured the earth, shaking Napier and Hastings so violently scores of buildings collapsed, including the school’s convent, killing a nun and trapping many.

“We were thrown to the ground. We tried to stand up but couldn’t. We were trying to crawl away from the building because of the terrible noise.

“We eventually managed to crawl into a paddock away from the school. That’s where I lost my lollies. I still had the top of the packet, though.

“The school stood, but there was a new convent on the same site where the nuns were having morning tea and that came down like a packet of crackers with the roof on top of it. To this day, I can still see the men cutting the roof to get them out.”

Once the devastating quake had stopped, worried relatives started arriving on foot and horseback to take their children to safety.