Tsunami hit Christchurch in 1960 | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami on Boxing Day has revived memories of a much less damaging sea surge closer to home.

In late May 1960 Sumner's Baden Norris was one of a number of Lyttelton port workers who were evacuated to higher ground as the east coast of New Zealand was hit by a tsunami.

Although not on the scale of the recent tidal wave that killed thousands in Asia, the tsunami of May 23 and 24, 1960, caused enough concern for port workers to be moved to higher ground.

Norris, now curator of the Lyttelton Museum, said the tsunami of 1960 wasn't particularly spectacular as there was no actual wave.

"It was just like the tide rapidly coming in and rising higher than normal and then dropping away dramatically, sometimes within 30 minutes," he said.

Norris said all port workers were evacuated from the wharves to the centre of Lyttelton, above Norwich Quay. No one was allowed on the waterfront at all.

"I lived in Sumner at the time so I was very concerned about my wife and house as well," he said.

"Luckily my home was OK but I do remember that around Shag Rock people had gathered and were blocking traffic to see the wave come in, which just shows you how silly people could be. But the wave didn't really seem to have affected Sumner."

Norris said the most dramatic thing about the whole episode was that the sea rose high enough for water to flow over the top of the gates of the dry dock at Lyttelton, and at it's highest point the water covered the wharves.

The unusual tidal surges that year were caused by a series of earthquakes off the coast of Chile. The earthquakes sent waves racing across the Pacific Ocean, hitting not only New Zealand and Chile but also the American west coast, the Hawaiian islands and Japan.

Those waves hit Canterbury's coast about 10pm on May 23 and surges continued through the morning of May 24, causing havoc along the region's coastline as the sea rose and fell as much as 5.2m (17 feet) in a series of abnormal tidal movements.

The surges caused boats to pull free from their moorings with some left on high ground after the water receded.

Rural land at Teddington and Allandale was flooded, houses in Charteris Bay were swamped and Lyttelton's port ground to a halt as the sea wreaked havoc with electrical systems, wharves and docks.

At the estuary a "hissing, gurgling, implacable surge of sea" took the estuary from low tide to near full tide in about three minutes. Ten minutes later it was low tide again and a series of smaller surges followed.

According to the Christchurch Star on May 24 the tide gauge at Lyttelton, which broke during the event, gave a reading of 8 feet (2.44m) below the normal level for low tide and rose to an estimated 11 feet 6 inches (3.5m) above normal level, giving a 19 foot 6 inch (5.95m) range.

Karl Cook, of Lyttelton, was 11 years old when he and a group of mates went down to the port to take a look at the water coming in.

"I can remember the water coming up over Fisherman's Wharf, which is about 1m below all the other wharves. It was just like a high rising tide," he said.

"Some old guy told us to move back and we were like, yeah yeah. But that's all I can really remember.