General Chat

Yes, the aftershocks have been quite an experience and hopefully they will fade away eventually. Never want to go through this sort of thing again, but at least we are having some lovely spring weather, and not being buried under snow like the poor souls in Southland!

Hi from Christchurch, the city that ROCKS!! We are in Burwood area but escaped the damage. I managed to sleep thru the aftershock just after midnight last night. Has certainly been the experience of a lifetime, hopefully not to be repeated.
Keith

Good evening Huia.Thankyou for your concern, and none of my extended family suffered any damage, thank goodness. It was a miracle as we are not far from the Burwood or Avonside areas, which were badly hit. None of the geologists knew about this "new " fault line, so it only goes to show how vulnerable we are in NZ. It pays not to think about it too much, as we would never get to sleep at nights! My genealogy has certainly taken a back seat this week.

Diane

Good morning, Diane. I hope your home and contents survived the quakes.

Huia.

Diane In Christchurch.

What a week! We are not out of the woods yet, just had another aftershock at 10.07 pm, but think it was only a 4.

Christchurch had another aftershock this morning - a 5.1 shake. One of our Building Inspectors from where I work is on standby to head down there to help out with the safety/structure inspections of buildings (there is 100,000 buildings to be inspected).

The Chch Council workers (and emergency services) have been on the go since the quake started - doing an excellent job.

Keep safe, our Kiwi friends.
I noticed a report that in Indonesia a volcano is smoking and throwing up ash after being dormant for hundreds of years.
Anything can happen if you're in that zone, I guess.

The earthquake room at Rotorua museum was enough of an experience for me !

Gwyn

Just had an email from my seventy year old friend and he is making light of it. His family are all ok , his home has a few cracks, some doors won't close but his local watering hole which is a ten minute walk away from his home is now a 3 mile drive as the bridge isn't safe to cross. The photo of the footbridge is like a z bend. Now that has upset him.- JLe

I would hate all those places named after my ancestors to disappear from Hunua in a dam earthquake.

I have a friend lives in Papakura and we were going out to Ararimu the other day and I took the back way around and passed the road to Hunua Falls and she tells me she has never seen them. So am thinking that she and I will pop out some time and if you are home we will drop in.

Persey

Yes, Perse, we have felt some earthquakes here in the past. We can see a faultline in the road cutting just a short distance up from us. And of course all these hills and valleys are caused by block tilt faulting in past years. The Hauraki plains are the result of block faulting.

Our son feels a lot of earthquakes in Rotorua. I will be staying there Labour weekend.

You tell me when a big one is coming and I will come for a cuppa afterwards to calm me down (cant be away to miss the big one!)

Huia.

Someone was also mentioning on Television how Hunua is not that safe - could also have quakes etc in the future Huia. You better come to my place for coffee and a scone that day.

My daughter is used to them in Wellington... her husband is a geologist/seismologist his earthquake zone is around the Bay of Plenty - he is always going around prodding and digging around in fault lines on his field studies.

I remember as a kid - staying in Whakatane out at Kopeopeo and earthquakes whilst minor happened nearly every night.

Perse

If anybody wants to know about these and past earthquakes they can go to www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake

The site has maps showing where all the earthquakes, both recent and historical have been, along with intensities. There are even some photos and sketches of some of the historic ones.

You can also look at info on some of our volcanic eruptions.

Huia.

'They're coming to get us'!

Huia.

About an hour ago a 5.2 quake struck the Hawkes Bay area of the North Island, I haven't seen any reports of damage yet.

These tremors of the 4.1 to 4.5 variety - aftershocks that have been happening are worrying the little ones and the elderly.
A couple of youngsters were trying to dig up the sludge which has surfaced looking for the lad's bike - they did find a wheelbarrow sunken down by the side of the place.
It is amazing the amount of properties where the darn quake has gone more or less through the middle of them.
In today's paper it says that about 100,000 homes have been affected in some way or other.

I don't think there is anywhere here in the shakey isles that is completely safe - I live in a city of 50 dormant (?) volcanoes.

Persey

Its rocked and Rolled most of the night very tiring Will have to get sleep when we can :)

Hello Margaret. Glad you are ok. I knew we had some members in the South Island.

Huia.

It was felt bad enough here in Ashburton prob 50klms south from the epicentre But we havent got the devastation that is in Christchurch its hit parts of the town and other parts seem untouched But it is a miracle there were No deaths it happened at 4 35 in morning and not during Day when shops offices would have been full of people
aftershocks have continued reguarly and some of these have been magnitute 4 and 5 on Saturday we sat glued to the TV watchingIt unfold just like 9 /11all over again

I sent off an email to an old friend who now lives on South island, about 160k from Christchurch, all was ok fortunately, safe and well and no damage to their house which is built on concrete pads. He said it was like being on a rocking boat in a very rough sea , made him feel sick.

We've been following it on the news here in Canada and wish everyone there well. I was hit by a 4.2 a couple of months ago (just shaken and shaken up!); a 7.1 is a monster.

We hear that after several bad ones in the 1800s, New Zealand adopted very stringent building standards and practices that make things much better able to withstand quakes now, which is why things aren't as horrific as they might have been these days. Although, from your last post, not as much better as they should have been in some cases. Beware creeping laxity!

And keep safe.