7.1 Strong earthquake in Christchurch

Very strong Earthquake this morning at 4.35am
Major damage in the CBD and other damage over much of the city. Expected to be over $2 billion in damage.
Power was off over about 90% of the city.
No water or sewage, and this may not be repaired for a few days.
We have had about 50 aftershocks with three over 5.0 in strength.
Cheers

Power & Water back on in Barrington - BLOODY SCARY - sorry about lack of info on Weather Station Web Page, but power only back on 1236 ( had one voltage surge since - reset computer)

Info here…

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4094986/Government-supports-quake-hit-Canterbury

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10671074

and more links on those sites.

Only 2 people seriously injured, no lost lives reported at all… Most building damage is in the Central Business District with old brick walled buildings - usually it is the second level walls have fallen down. Many roads and pavements have damage especially close to the streams and old reclaimed stream beds. Sewers and town mains are underground and expected to have major damage. The central city was mainly built 1860-1930.

More will be known of the extent inside two weeks. 7.1R nd at only 10kms deep makes for a lot of surface movement and building damage…

Graeme

alot of the bigger past quakes have been away from populated areas…not this time…and the soil type meant there was liquification…reports of water erupting from the ground like small volcanoes during the quake!
luckily it did not occur during rush hour , instead of 4:30am when most were in bed asleep!

Photos

http://www.crashbang.co.nz/quake040910/index.html?ref=nf

Timeline

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10671050

Sounds like a nasty one :frowning:

wow… pretty impressive photos. Glad no one was seriously injured.

Some reports say it is the strongest quake in over 70 years. Our house is a bit of a mess with most shelves contents now on the floor. About 10 mm of water sloshed out of the fish tank onto the floor.
A neighbour had about a foot of water sloshed out of his swimming pool.
The local park now has a number of little ponds where there was grass.

Three small aftershocks over the last five or so minutes

I didn’t really think NZ got many quakes at all. We had one here in 2000 i think it was, measured a 6.9 if i remember right.

NZ is on the pacific ring of fire, ie. earthquakes and volcanoes…

there has been larger earthquakes, one just last year in Fiordland…over 8 on the richter scale…but no one lives there!

and there has been earthquakes on the west coast of the south island relatively recently that were stronger (inangaua (spelling?))
and then there was the Edgecumbe earthquake in the north island relatively recently that did alot of damage…but none of those were near a large population center…which this one was…centered only 40km away from Christchurch city (380,000 people) and only 10km deep!

ahhhh… I over looked that.

check out
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/factbox-new-zealand-s-biggest-earthquakes-2848956

for past earthquakes in NZ
put this Christchurch quake right up there! !

The worst one I’d been in before was 6.3 in Samoa last year(exactly a month before the deadly tsunami one) & this was WAY worse !! - not only strong, but LONG - estimate 90 seconds+, so was rockin & rollin for a while !!
Seismograph from near home - read from bottom left to top right

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/drums/mqz-drum.html

:multi: :multi:

Some more info about todays quake.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

OOH. We are wobbling again!

Just been for a walk in the local park. Every 5 to 10 yards there is a large crack up to 2 inch wide in the paths. All over the park there are many mounds of sand that has come up through the grass, looking like little volcanos up to 2 meters across and about 10 cm high. It looks like everything liquified.

been working night shift and heard it as the main piece of news every hour on the radio here in the UK.

Hope you lot down there are OK, first thing i thought of was you lot who write here on the forum, hope you are all ok.
Never experienced a quake but must have been frightening, especially a 7 pointer

Today we have had a few shakes with a reading over 5.0 and it is interesting that we now just note the shake and think nothing of it. The 7.1 shake desensitised us, I suppose.
:shocked!:

Still on edge each time you hear/feel a rumble. Having a couple of wines (MEDICINAL PURPOSES ONLY)!!

:downtown: :downtown:

amazing to see pictures of ground zero…in the middle of nowhere in rural coutryside, where there are large cracks in lines extending for miles, marking the actual sideways fault movement of 5 metres (and where previously roads crossing the new fault line (previously unknown), now have a kink in them, and a new speed hump and cracks wide enough and deep enough to get into !

http://www.news.com.au/world/christchuch-earthquake-causes-new-35m-fault-line/story-e6frfkyi-1225914545340

What does got me worried.
“New Zealand’s last major earthquake registered 7.8 on the Richter scale and hit the South Island’s Fiordland region on July 16, 2009, moving the southern tip of the country 30cm closer to Australia.”

This gotta stop hey… before you know it they talk tunnels and connecting NZ to AU… (Just kidding) but it shows that biggies happen more often than I thought. :smiley: :lol:

Hope all are save, its been a rumbling last 14 odd months on this side of the globe. Some serious earthquakes, serious floods and serious bushfires.

Now they beleive we might be in for an interesting cyclone season aswell…

Stay save NZ.

H.