Napier after Hawke's Bay earthquake

item details

NameNapier after Hawke's Bay earthquake

ProductionLes Wallace; photographer; February 1931; Napier

Classificationblack-and-white prints, gelatin silver prints, panoramas

Materialsphotographic gelatin, photographic paper, silver

Materials Summarygelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 158mm (height), 388mm (length)

Registration NumberO.005635

Credit lineGift of Holden New Zealand Limited, 1998

Overview

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025).

The Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 3 February 1931 remains New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster: 256 lost their lives, and the region was devastated. With limited water to fight the fires that ignited after the quake, eleven blocks of central Napier were completely gutted. According to an eyewitness, by evening the town ‘looked as if it had been subjected to a severe bombardment’: The centre of it for over a mile was a mass of flames. Every concrete and brick building had collapsed. It was like an upheaval and there was a terrible number of deaths . . . A number of people were lying in the streets and buried under the debris. Some were terribly injured and some were dead. The town was all in darkness and that added to the horror of the situation.