When New Zealander Bob McCombe woke on Saturday to find his house shaking violently in a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, the sensation was all too familiar.
McCombe, 89, is a veteran survivor of the country’s most devastating earthquake, a magnitude 7.8 convulsion in the Hawke’s Bay area in 1931 that killed 256 people.
“It was most frightening. Anyone who goes through that and says they weren’t frightened is either a liar or he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he told the Press newspaper, referring to Saturday’s disaster.
McCombe still has clear memories of the 1931 quake, which flattened large parts of the cities of Napier and Hastings on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
He was a 10-year-old when the earthquake hit on the morning of Feb. 2, 1931, and was playing outside with friends at Parkvale Primary School in Hastings.
“The ground started to shake and water started coming out of the swimming bath that had just been built. The teacher told us to get down on the ground and hold on to the grass,” he said.
Saturday’s quake left widespread damage in Christchurch, in the country’s South Island, causing US$1.44 billion of damage but no deaths.
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