They were later fully drained and the reclaimed land was built on. Swamps partly dried out as a result of the quake. A result of this newly-raised land was that the shipping basin planned for the city was abandoned and the land was used for a cricket ground instead - the Basin Reserve. The earthquake raised the Wellington coastline by up to 1.5 metres. How many died?įour people died (one in Wellington, three in the Wairarapa). The Government Offices, which housed the Wellington Provincial Government, were completely demolished. In the harbour, the water washed in and out in huge waves every twenty minutes by up to several metres, flooding some of the houses on the beach front. In the Wairarapa three people died when a house collapsed on them. This was the only death in Wellington from the earthquake. One was a two-storey hotel which collapsed, killing the owner. Approximately four-fifths of the chimneys in Wellington fell down.īrick houses destroyed in the 1848 quake had been replaced by timber houses, but there were still some brick buildings which suffered damage in 1855. The damage from the earthquake was extensive with timber houses as well as brick buildings collapsing. In 1855 Wellington had a population of approximately 6,000 people. Three people had died when a wall collapsed onto them. It had been followed by several aftershocks, causing severe damage in Wellington. That earthquake had been centred in the Wairau Valley, in Marlborough, and had measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. The first large earthquake that they had felt had taken place on 16 October 1848, during a strong gale and heavy rain.
This earthquake was the second major earthquake that Wellington settlers had experienced. The violent shake was felt as far away as Canterbury. The earthquake measured 8.2 on the Richter scale and was centred in the south-west Wairarapa along the Wairarapa Fault, about 25 kilometres from Wellington. The largest recorded earthquake to have hit New Zealand rocked Wellington and the Wairarapa at 9:11pm, on 23 January 1855. The earthquake was one of the main reasons why houses in Wellington were mostly rebuilt in timber rather than brick. Four people were killed and the landscape of the Wellington region was changed significantly.
At 9:11pm, on 23 January 1855, the southern part of the North Island was struck by a magnitude 8.2 earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded in New Zealand.
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