7.0 earthquake hits Christchurch, New Zealand

[alt]

Actually I don't think apeiron has checked in yet. The post you read was from the last quake.

I really hope he's OK!

OOPS ! Thanks. Should have looked a the dates.

I hope so too. Being so close, we get much reporting, and the situation / death toll is looking worse.

Last quake was at 4.30 AM - no one in city. This one, ealry afternoon - everyone is city.

 

[nismaratwork]

Another earthquake has hit Christchurch, 6.3, 5km deep.

www.nzherald.co.nz

www.stuff.co.nz

for updates. 65 confirmed dead so far. Absolutely shocking. I actually went to ChCh in October last year (my dad and I had originally purchased tickets in March for about $17 one way from Wellington - special deal was going on) and the place I stayed at, reports bodies have been removed from there.

I'm so sorry.

Baruch Dayan Emet.

--


Apeiron... Fuzzy... ROLL CALL!

When I'm worried, it usually means other people are EXTREMELY worried.

Damn it... BE OK you two, and anyone else there.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I'm so sorry.

Baruch Dayan Emet.

--


Apeiron... Fuzzy... ROLL CALL!

When I'm worried, it usually means other people are EXTREMELY worried.

Damn it... BE OK you two, and anyone else there.

Sorry, I didn't see this sooner. I'm not in NZ, but thanks nismar. I'm very sorry to hear about this and hope aperion is ok, too.

 

[turbo]

The pictures from Christchurch are saddening. It's likely that the death toll will be very high, with so many flattened buildings.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/22/new-zealand-earthquake-20_1_n_826474.html#s244035

 

[nismaratwork]

Sorry, I didn't see this sooner. I'm not in NZ, but thanks nismar. I'm very sorry to hear about this and hope aperion is ok, too.

Ahhh... good good.


@Turbo-1: Oh hell...

 

[StevieTNZ]

It is pretty bad down there. The death has been revised down to 32, but that is surely going to increase.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/8887668/woman-dies-with-baby-in-arms/ - just makes my heart sink.

 

[nismaratwork]

It is pretty bad down there. The death has been revised down to 32, but that is surely going to increase.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/8887668/woman-dies-with-baby-in-arms/ - just makes my heart sink.

Damn it... where is apeiron...

 

[hypatia]

This is very worrying, at this point we need to assume power is out and apeiron can not contact us. This event is really very sad.

 

[nismaratwork]

This is very worrying, at this point we need to assume power is out and apeiron can not contact us. This event is really very sad.

Agreed... seeing this though... oh lord. I really hope that he's OK, but I also hope he hasn't lost friends/family.


The more information that comes out the more it seems CC is devestated.

NZ PM: "This is our darkest day"

Here's to hoping he's too busy helping people to make contact...

 

[Dadface]

What a stressful day.Our eldest son,his Kiwi partner and our two grandchildren live in Woolston,Christchurch.Our son emigrated from here (London) a few years back.Power was out in Woolston and it was hours before anyone could make contact.Eventually our son was able to give us a call.Thankfully the family is fine.Our hearts go to all the families who are affected.

 

[Evo]

What a stressful day.Our eldest son,his Kiwi partner and our two grandchildren live in Woolston,Christchurch.Our son emigrated from here (London) a few years back.Power was out in Woolston and it was hours before anyone could make contact.Eventually our son was able to give us a call.Thankfully the family is fine.Our hearts go to all the families who are affected.

Wonderful to hear they are safe.

 

[lisab]

What a stressful day.Our eldest son,his Kiwi partner and our two grandchildren live in Woolston,Christchurch.Our son emigrated from here (London) a few years back.Power was out in Woolston and it was hours before anyone could make contact.Eventually our son was able to give us a call.Thankfully the family is fine.Our hearts go to all the families who are affected.

Whew, that's great news!

 

[nismaratwork]

What a stressful day.Our eldest son,his Kiwi partner and our two grandchildren live in Woolston,Christchurch.Our son emigrated from here (London) a few years back.Power was out in Woolston and it was hours before anyone could make contact.Eventually our son was able to give us a call.Thankfully the family is fine.Our hearts go to all the families who are affected.

GOOD... I'm very glad.


Now... apeiron... stop worrying us.

 

[WhoWee]

There was major infrastructure damage in Christchurch the closest city to the quake.

Mayor: Quake hit city 'like an iceberg'

Apparently there was a fair amount of looting going on.

The municipal water system has been compromised. Many people will be without drinking water or water for bathing.

I tried to contact a client this afternoon on the outskirts of the city (it was pre-scheduled) and couldn't complete the call. I also sent an email with no response.

 

[Astronuc]

I'm still waiting to hear from folks there.

The damage this time was much worse than the mag 7 last year.
Saturday, September 04, 2010 at 04:35:46 AM at epicenter
45 km (30 miles) W of Christchurch, New Zealand


The current one hit Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 12:51:43 PM at epicenter
NEAR Christchurch, New Zealand (just 6 mi (10 km) SE of city) toward Lyttelton

Shaking intensity in the city was much greater for this earthquake than the magnitude 7.1 earthquake for any of its other aftershocks. The highest shaking was recorded at Pages Road Pumping Station at 188 %g, with readings of 127 %g at Heathcote Valley Primary School and 107 %g at Hulverstone Road Pumping Station. This is due to the proximity of the epicentre to the city and the shallow depth.

1g of acceleration is considered very significant. Pages Road Pumping Station was near 2g!

Figure shows the ground acceleration. The red squares mean the most severe damage to structures.
http://www.geonet.org.nz/var/storage/images/media/images/news/2011/lyttelton_pga/57159-1-eng-GB/lyttelton_pga.png

Ref: http://www.geonet.org.nz/news/feb-2011-christchurch-badly-damaged-by-magnitude-6-3-earthquake.html (page is periodically updated)
The acceleration at Heathcote Valley Primary School has been revised to 2.20 g!

 

[nismaratwork]

I'm still waiting to hear from folks there.

The damage this time was much worse than the mag 7 last year.
Saturday, September 04, 2010 at 04:35:46 AM at epicenter
45 km (30 miles) W of Christchurch, New Zealand


The current one hit Tuesday, February 22, 2011 at 12:51:43 PM at epicenter
NEAR Christchurch, New Zealand (just 6 mi (10 km) SE of city) toward Lyttelton

1g of acceleration is considered very significant. Pages Road Pumping Station was near 2g!

Figure shows the ground acceleration. The red squares mean the most severe damage to structures.
http://www.geonet.org.nz/var/storage/images/media/images/news/2011/lyttelton_pga/57159-1-eng-GB/lyttelton_pga.png

When you hear, please let us know... This is very worrying.

 

[zomgwtf]

Hmmmm, didn't notice this thread picked up again for the recent earthquake. When I read about the quake this morning I remembered the thread from before and PM'd apeiron... no response yet, no ones heard anything huh?

 

[nismaratwork]

Hmmmm, didn't notice this thread picked up again for the recent earthquake. When I read about the quake this morning I remembered the thread from before and PM'd apeiron... no response yet, no ones heard anything huh?

No... [URL]http://www.planetsmilies.com/smilies/sad/sad0020.gif[/URL]

 

[Evo]

I imagine there are power outages and getting on PF is probably low on the importance scale. Hopefully he and his family are ok.

 

[alt]

I imagine there are power outages and getting on PF is probably low on the importance scale. Hopefully he and his family are ok.

80% of the place is without power. Many large buildings damaged, teetering on collapse. 75 confirmed dead, 300 missing. The city is being closed down for the next 3 days at least.

You're right, getting on an internet forum would be a low priority in such circumstances. Let's hope it's that.

 

[Astronuc]

http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/24270574

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110223/ap_on_bi_ge/as_new_zealand_earthquake

It's pretty bad.

 

[nismaratwork]

I imagine there are power outages and getting on PF is probably low on the importance scale. Hopefully he and his family are ok.

I know... it's just worry... if I were there and whole, I'd be trying to help people out of the rubble, not getting on PF.

Still... apeiron isn't my only friend there (just not an online friend). It's never a good feeling to know that we can't expect word soon.

 

[apeiron]

Thanks for people's concerns. Power has been off so no net access. Plus there is stuff to do.

Summary is me and mine are basically fine, there will be a few hundred dead, which looking around at the buildings that went, could be considered lucky, and rebuilding sewers, economy, homes, will be something we are still talking about in 5, probably 10 years.

It was incredibly bad luck to get a second shallower and almost right under the city. A mag 6 was expected following a mag 7, the hope was that it would be further away.

Here is the quick update I've been sending friends.

-------------------------

Hi - Family, house and cats all fine. We are in the lucky part of town where the damage is the least. We have water but not yet power. No visible damage at all really in our suburb. But a lot of the town is properly devastated this time round.

I was in the central city at the time and we had one person killed, several trapped, as a fair bit of our historic building collapsed. I was under a desk watching bits of ceiling fall in and bricks from the top floor rain down.

Sandy was at her clinic across town and her problem was that pipes broke, ground liquified, so in minutes her car was swamped and had to be abandoned. She got a lift home from a bus driver who abandoned his route to bring her to the door.

Kids were just finishing lunchbreak, so were safely outside.

The problems now are lack of power (so we have been out of communication with the world - I am typing this from our printing press on the outskirts of town where I can get a powerpoint and internet connection). The sewers are stuffed, so we shouldn't be using toilets (but with water going, most people still are). We have not had to go down to shops as we have a freezer of stuff going off, plus a vast supply of pasta/tinned tomatoes and other earthquake basics. But actually, food and fuel can get into Christchurch pretty easily, so no fear there.

Law and order not a problem, and everyone is helping neighbours. We have been looking after the oldies down our street, who need reassurance as much as anything.

Longer term, the town is looking to be in for a very hard time economically as the central business district looks inoperable for months and the fixing of roads, sewers, electricity will take years (they will be patched up in weeks, but rebuilding will go on a long time).

----------------------

 

[Evo]

It must have been terrifying! So glad that you and your family are ok. Do they have an estimate of when you might get power?

 

[turbo]

apeiron, glad to hear that you and yours are OK.

When I saw the fist images of the pancaked buildings and collapsed walls, my first thought was that deaths would probably total in the low thousands, not the hundreds. I'm very happy to be wrong on that count.

 

[nismaratwork]

Thanks for people's concerns. Power has been off so no net access. Plus there is stuff to do.

Summary is me and mine are basically fine, there will be a few hundred dead, which looking around at the buildings that went, could be considered lucky, and rebuilding sewers, economy, homes, will be something we are still talking about in 5, probably 10 years.

It was incredibly bad luck to get a second shallower and almost right under the city. A mag 6 was expected following a mag 7, the hope was that it would be further away.

Here is the quick update I've been sending friends.

-------------------------

Hi - Family, house and cats all fine. We are in the lucky part of town where the damage is the least. We have water but not yet power. No visible damage at all really in our suburb. But a lot of the town is properly devastated this time round.

I was in the central city at the time and we had one person killed, several trapped, as a fair bit of our historic building collapsed. I was under a desk watching bits of ceiling fall in and bricks from the top floor rain down.

Sandy was at her clinic across town and her problem was that pipes broke, ground liquified, so in minutes her car was swamped and had to be abandoned. She got a lift home from a bus driver who abandoned his route to bring her to the door.

Kids were just finishing lunchbreak, so were safely outside.

The problems now are lack of power (so we have been out of communication with the world - I am typing this from our printing press on the outskirts of town where I can get a powerpoint and internet connection). The sewers are stuffed, so we shouldn't be using toilets (but with water going, most people still are). We have not had to go down to shops as we have a freezer of stuff going off, plus a vast supply of pasta/tinned tomatoes and other earthquake basics. But actually, food and fuel can get into Christchurch pretty easily, so no fear there.

Law and order not a problem, and everyone is helping neighbours. We have been looking after the oldies down our street, who need reassurance as much as anything.

Longer term, the town is looking to be in for a very hard time economically as the central business district looks inoperable for months and the fixing of roads, sewers, electricity will take years (they will be patched up in weeks, but rebuilding will go on a long time).

----------------------

Phew... I'm glad you and all are well, I'm sorry about everything else though.

 

[nismaratwork]

apeiron, glad to hear that you and yours are OK.

When I saw the fist images of the pancaked buildings and collapsed walls, my first thought was that deaths would probably total in the low thousands, not the hundreds. I'm very happy to be wrong on that count.

News is coming out that you might be right... I'm very glad to have heard from apeiron given that news.

CNN-"Death toll expected to rise sharply"

 

[apeiron]

apeiron, glad to hear that you and yours are OK.

When I saw the fist images of the pancaked buildings and collapsed walls, my first thought was that deaths would probably total in the low thousands, not the hundreds. I'm very happy to be wrong on that count.

Yeah, the TV cameras pick out the worst. Two tall buildings did collapse dramatically. Possibly due to lateral spreading as liquified land slumped towards the river. A lot of frontages fell down, squashing buses and people, but building codes mean that most places were wrecked yet not collapsed. People could get out.

The serious stuff is what earthquakes do to services underground. Pretty much a whole town sewer and water system to be dug out and relaid.

@ evo: not so much terrifying as just really annoying. The town was well along in its recovery from the first quake. So a second hit is psychologically a big drain.

 

[nismaratwork]

Yeah, the TV cameras pick out the worst. Two tall buildings did collapse dramatically. Possibly due to lateral spreading as liquified land slumped towards the river. A lot of frontages fell down, squashing buses and people, but building codes mean that most places were wrecked yet not collapsed. People could get out.

The serious stuff is what earthquakes do to services underground. Pretty much a whole town sewer and water system to be dug out and relaid.

@ evo: not so much terrifying as just really annoying. The town was well along in its recovery from the first quake. So a second hit is psychologically a big drain.

That's for the future, for now the best thing is to aknowledge that future, but live in the moment. It may be that there is some good to come of this; in fact one theory is that these multiple quakes are taking the place of a "Big One".

 

[Astronuc]

The Pyne Gould Guinness Building, a multi-storey building containing more than 200 workers, has collapsed and an unknown number of people are trapped inside.

That was half-collapsed.

The CTV building completely collapsed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/8340203/Christchurch-earthquake-destruction-seen-from-the-air.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/8339930/Powerful-earthquake-devastates-Christchurch.html

 

[apeiron]

That's for the future, for now the best thing is to aknowledge that future, but live in the moment. It may be that there is some good to come of this; in fact one theory is that these multiple quakes are taking the place of a "Big One".

Wrong theory. The Alpine fault where the plates actually grind past each other is still waiting to go (about once every 600 years). These are just lateral faults that run all the way up the eastern coastline. The alpine would be 8+. And about as damaging as current quakes here, because it would be over 100km away. But bad for other cities and towns right in the path.

Many cities have rebuilt quite well out of quakes, so the 20 year view is more optimistic. At least now we can say that two of our big local faults have gone and it should take another 20,000 years or so for them to reload. It seems unlikely there can be more lurking so close to town. But hopefully we will be doing full seismic surveys to discover that.

 

[lisab]

Yay...so good to hear from you, apeiron! Glad everything is well with your family and cats.

 

[apeiron]

Yay...so good to hear from you, apeiron! Glad everything is well with your family and cats.

The cats are now happy in the sunshine. Power is back on but they are getting fat on defrosting scallops and prawns that would otherwise go in the bin.

Whoops, just then another aftershock. One thing the news never explains is that we were still getting little bumps several times a day five months after the first quake.

Someone put together this time lapse animation of the many thousands we've had.

http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

 

[rootX]

It's good to hear from you and your cats again

 

[lisab]

The cats are now happy in the sunshine. Power is back on but they are getting fat on defrosting scallops and prawns that would otherwise go in the bin.

Whoops, just then another aftershock. One thing the news never explains is that we were still getting little bumps several times a day five months after the first quake.

Someone put together this time lapse animation of the many thousands we've had.

http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

Wow, that's an interesting animation. I didn't look at all of it but it seemed unusually quiet before Tuesday's big one.