Newspaper Article 1995 – Quake victims honoured

Quake victims honoured

By PHILIP KITCHIN

COLIN BRITTEN and Noel Evans were a couple of kids in baggy shorts on their first day back at school at 10.47am, 64 years ago today – the day Hawke’s Bay rocked on the waves of a monster earthquake.

The two retired Hastings men have never forgotten that day – a day when 256 people, including Mr Evans’s father, died in one of New Zealand’s worst disasters.

Today, they and other quake survivors, local politicians, schoolchildren and the public, will hold an unveiling and memorial service at the Hastings clock tower.

It will be an important moment for Mr Britten and Mr Evans. Just a few months after the 1931 quake struck, Mr Britten’s father suggested to then Hastings mayor Gordon Roach that the 93 victims from the Hastings area be remembered with a memorial plaque.

But the suggestion was shelved. Mayors came and went, the war was fought and won and Mr Britten’s father died before the memorial he sought was made.

Last year Hastings Mayor Jeremy Dwyer was asked by Mr Britten and others to help put up a memorial.

Nearly 65 years after the event, Hastings District Council agreed to fund two copper plaques engraved with the names of Hastings and districts quake victims.

Mr Dwyer said profound historic events such as the 1931 earthquake should be remembered and recorded.

“It’s not only paying our due respects to those who died, it is a constant reminder that a community like Hastings and Hawke’s Bay has triumphed and rebuilt following disaster.”

Mr Evans, who helped Mr Britten with the research for the plaques, said one of the most poignant moments about the ceremony might be the sight of a group of Hastings Boys High School students who will mark the death of Rex Ernest Fredsberg during the quake.

The 13-year-old died in a store in Hastings just two hours after starting secondary school. He was in the store picking up his school cap.

Photo caption – Mr Britten, left, and Mr Evans with one of the plaques for earthquake victims
Photo BILL KEARNS