D j vu for quake survivor | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

Vivid memories from Napier's deadly 1931 earthquake came flooding back to Nick Nicholas when he woke to his house shaking on Saturday morning.

The 85-year-old Hornby resident, who grew up in Hawke's Bay, was six when the famous 1931 earthquake devastated the region. Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, it killed at least 256 people.

Last Saturday morning when he and his wife Esme were woken by the earthquake, it brought back the same fear he felt as a boy. "It has taken me back - very much so I'm afraid," he said. "It's a very frightening experience."

In 1931, Mr Nicholas was living in Wairoa with his family. On the day the earthquake struck, he was lining up with his classmates in the school playground. "It was bloody frightening. We were all too frightened to move."

He remembered being sent home by his teacher and he was fearful of having to cross a bridge that was missing sections, to get to the other side of the river.

Mr Nicholas's family of eight survived without injury, but his older brother who was at school in Napier, had a narrow escape. "The school building came down on him and buried him under a slab of concrete. He managed to shift a few bricks and pull himself out of the rubble."

Like Christchurch, the earthquake damaged landmarks including the town post office and changed the town forever, he said. "A fair bit of it was wrecked."

Mr Nicholas moved to Christ church in 1947 after leaving the army and has lived there since.

He and his wife were lucky that their house had suffered "surprisingly little damage" on Saturday, he said.

Mr Nicholas said he only hoped he didn't live to see a third earthquake. "Good God, I hope not."

Christchurch resident Bob McCombe, who was featured in Hawke's Bay Today on Tuesday, was 10 when the quake hit Napier. Outside Parkvale School at the time, he remembers his teacher telling him to hold on to the grass.

Despite his young age he understood the magnitude of the event when he saw the main street of Hastings reduced to rubble. "Even though we were very young, we were quite affected by the sight," Mr McCombe said. "It was such a traumatic incident, it took time for people to get over it."