The earth writhed and death walked the streets of Napier

IT was 10.47am on February 3rd, 1931 and then Napier schoolgirl Joan Harris and her friends where on a morning play break from school.
At that moment, 75 years ago today, a devastating earthquake struck, killing 256 people and injuring thousands more.
Mrs Harris, now living in Waverley, says it's a day she'll never forget.
"It was playtime at school, and all the teachers ran out and told us to stay where we were," she said.
But many of the terrified children didn't listen and fled the school grounds, running for their lives.
"We didn't even know what earthquakes were. My brother and sister and a boy who lived near us ran home? there were power lines down everywhere and holes in the ground. Everything was wrecked."
Her mother had jumped on the back of a bread van to get into town and jumped off when she saw the children. "She took us to the top of the Botanical Gardens, where everyone was gathering. That night and for some weeks later, we lived in tents in the gardens."
No-one was allowed back into their homes as aftershocks rumbled on for weeks afterwards, some getting large enough to cause more damage.
"There was no toilet, no water and we couldn't light fires, as almost every chimney was down.
"The night of the earthquake there was a full moon, and it was bright red ? from all the fires, I suppose," she said. After the shaking stopped fires tore through buildings and continued relentlessly as water pipes had ruptured in the quake.
"The water went out of the port and there was talk it would return in a tidal wave."
Mrs Harris, 83, describes the harrowing sight of so many dead and injured people in the streets.
"It was horrible seeing the dead and dying and also the wounded being bought down from the hospital. Many nurses died, and the dead were being put on the lawn at the bottom of the Botanical Gardens," she said.
Mrs Harris and her family were sent to Greenmeadows, near Napier, along with many women and children because it was weeks until they were allowed inside.
"It was longer still before we could cook inside. We had a makeshift fire in a carshed."
It was May before school resumed and even then her classroom was missing a wall.
"We were in a room with a tarpaulin down one side for a wall, there was debris all over the playground ? I don't know how the children would cope today."
Mrs Harris hasn't experienced anything like the 1931 quake since but still freezes whenever a quake strikes, however small.
"I hate them and still wonder how bad it's going to be, every time."
One story she will never forget, though, comes from her father. He was a gravedigger and was in the cemetery when the quake struck. When the shaking stopped he went into a freshly dug grave to retrieve a ladder and was reaching out of the grave when a woman began screaming.
"She was hysterical and thought the dead were coming to life," she laughed.