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NZ Earthquake

mcb1

Guys/Gals

Just a quick update on the major Earthquake that struck NZ north of Christchurch just after midnight.

 

They have decided that there was two quakes and they are still deciding if it was along the Hope faultline which runs SW to NE and forms the hills that are between the Southern Alps and the east coast.

It would seem that this triggered many others right up the North Island so the effects were felt widespread.

 

 

I'm in Chch and was up at the time. It went on for 2-3 mins which is much longer than the previous ones.

The closest place is Kaikoura and it has caused some damage to houses, but has currently cut the road link that goes up the east coast (State Highway 1), and damaged other roads that could form an alternative route.

 

There was a Tsuanami warning issued, but got downgraded to a coastal warning.

Unfortunately these warnings end up much less than predicted, so if we actually get a real one, then I'm afraid many will ignore it.

 

 

For those that haven't experienced Earthquakes, they can be very disturbing to some people.

There is often little/no warning and while it might be a little bit of shaking at first, you have no idea how long it will last, or if it will get worse.

 

 

NZ sits on the junction of two plates and one is going under the other. The movement is constant, but various bits get stuck and then suddenly release as the stress overcomes the friction.

This release often results in extra loading on another part and triggers an aftershock which can be almost as large.

So far there have been 50 or more aftershocks in and around the area, so you get no rest from them.

GeoNet - Quakes

As you can imagine you lose power, your house gets trashed and you get no rest, so it's quite stressful in the affected are.

 

 

The christchurch event in 2010 had around 14,000 aftershocks varying down to only just detectable without instruments.

So this will last for some days and it may trigger more events.

 

 

 

If you have friends and relatives in NZ, do try to make contact but appreciate that cellphone systems get overloaded and texts are the best way to contact them.

 

 

Cheers

Mark

  • in reply to Instructorman

    ...just occasional floods, and the odd F4 tornado

    You forgot polar bears image

     

    The trouble is, escaping from the -40 zone to the West puts you right back into earthquake and tsunami zone image

     

    ...sometimes gets to -40C in the winter

    Only "sometimes" ?  I'm guessing you must either be not that far North, or closer to the Great Lakes?

     

    I'm on the West coast - on that little rebel island that dares dip below the Canada/US border. I escaped from Northern Alberta.

     

    Cheers,

    -Nico

     

     

  • in reply to mcb1

    The planet is a dynamic place.

     

    You can get earthquakes anywhere as the plates shift around.

     

    Safe areas are very relative.

     

    DAB

  • in reply to Instructorman

    Ever consider moving to northern Canada?

    Sounds inviting ...

     

    Joke here is that might have an imigration problem looming .... image

     

     

    Ever since I was a kid, it's always been Wellington that was going to get hit by an earthquake.

    No-one really imagined that it would be Christchurch and now Kaikoura area.

     

    Cheers

  • Glad to read you are okay Mark.

    Your posts and photographs about the impact the earthquake are mesmerizing.

     

    Ever consider moving to northern Canada?  Tectonically stable, no volcanoes, no tsunamis, just occasional floods, and the odd F4 tornado (last one was in 1987).

    Oh, and it sometimes gets to -40C in the winter, but less often now that the planet is heating up.

     

    Mark A

  • in reply to mcb1

    NZ certainly has it work cut out for it to rebuild the infrastructure.

     

    As you said, no easy fixes for some of these issues and new roads take time to build.

     

    Might be easier to set up a ferry service over the water.

     

    DAB

  • Someone has posted this video on Youtube.

    It is the section of road from Parnassus to the second tunnel.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqGPvmjxBNg

     

    You can see the roading gangs have been clearing and making access available.

    The bridge where he gets out and is greated by the other guy is Oaro and SH1 goes over the railway, while access to the small settlement is beside the bridge, hence why he can get past.

     

    Fantastic effort so far, considering there are still aftershocks of varying size.

     

     

    Mark

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    It's not sand.

    It is a very fine powder like material and sets like concrete.

  • in reply to mcb1

    Wow, there's a business opportunity there in cleaning up the sand and then selling it for sandboxes image

     

    I think our local engineers were limited by budget. I suspect they may have just duct-taped it to higher ground image

     

    -Nico

  • in reply to element14Dave

    Dave and the others.

    Thanks for the thoughts.

     

    There are lots of people who have seen, heard or thought about this piece of the coastline.

    The government and the agencies have worked out it will be months or even a year before any normal sort of transport can resume.

     

    Unfortunately the narrow, steep nature of NZ means that alternative routes are limited.

    The very nature of why we have the magestic Southern Alps, means tunnels are not always the best solution.

     

    Sucessive goverments have bowed to commercial pressure, and as a consequence the costal shipping which would be an alternative has little or no capacity to immediately fill the gap. The discussions are happening, but really should have been done in 2010 when we had the Christchurch quakes.

     

    How many times on this site have we said there is no substitute for good planning, and this includes planning for when things go wrong.

     

    Mark

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    I heard second hand that the seabed shift at Kaikoura was 3m, not the 2m that it appeared.

     

    Liquifaction is the biggest problem with anywhere that might have been created as the result of filling on top of water, swamp or other areas that previously had water.

    In Chch there was something like 500,000 tons of a very fine material (like cement) brought up by the water from underneath.

     

    Sometimes it has a large hole and other times it looks like mini volcanoes.

       Image result for liquefactionimage

     

     

    it's built right beside the river

    During the shaking, the land will try to flatten out, and many properties near rivers, streams or other cuts in the surface tended to migrate that way.

     

    There is a plan that large columns of stone dug many metres down can be used to prevent the surface heading toward the river.

    I'd hope your engineers look at some of these solutions.