Some tributes

No account of a disaster of this magnitude would be complete without some word of the people who worked in dangerous conditions and for long hours to restore and maintain essential services. And so some tributes, for the men of the N. Z. Electricity Department who, within three hours of the main shake, were able to restore normal power supplies to the Buller Power Board at Waimangaroa; to the lines staff of the Post Office who gained a tenuous hold on communications in the stricken areas, maintained and strengthened it; to the Ministry of Works engineers and workmen who have worked long hours in an area still shaken by quakes to repair some of the ravages to roads. Other bouquets must also go to the helicopter crews of Helicopters (N. Z.) Ltd, and the R. N. Z. A. F; to all in the Civil Defence Organisations for an excellent job and to all those good people who rallied round to help those who lost so much.

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This damage on the Buller Gorge highway was not caused by a slip. The road just erupted.

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Post Office lines staff, Gus Frost, John Petterson, John Atwood (Murchison), Alex Hedley, Rex Dumpleton and Piri Kotua (all of Nelson) establishing the first telephone link through the gorge.