*BREAKING* Magnitude 7+ Earthquake Hits New Zealand

[CaptainChewbacca]

A massive 7.4 magnitude earthquake has hit New Zealand's South Island, causing widespread damage and knocking out power to much of the area, The Nelson Mail reports.

The quake was centered about 20 miles west of Christchurch. The newspaper is located in Nelson, which is on the northern end of the South Island.

The newspaper quotes one witness, Colleen Simpson, as saying residents of Christchurch were out in the street in their pajamas looking "scared and worried."

"Oh my God. There is a row of shops completely demolished right in front of me," she is quoted as saying.

Power was knocked out to the area and and mobile phones were being to fail, the newspaper reports.

(Posted by Doug Stanglin)

The Quake hit about an hour ago. Power and communications were out, so reports are spotty. No Tsunami warning is issued, thank God.

[Scottish Ninja]

Just heard back from all of my family down there; none of them are hurt. Hope that holds true for everyone else in Christchurch. I don't know if this has almost been lucky in a way; when I told my dad he said he'd been expecting me to say that it had been in Wellington and that the city had been leveled. Would this have released some tension that makes it less likely for there to be a large quake near Wellington, at least in the short term?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Just heard back from all of my family down there; none of them are hurt. Hope that holds true for everyone else in Christchurch. I don't know if this has almost been lucky in a way; when I told my dad he said he'd been expecting me to say that it had been in Wellington and that the city had been leveled. Would this have released some tension that makes it less likely for there to be a large quake near Wellington, at least in the short term?

No, the way the fault moves, this means the tension is transmitting along the fault. Wellington could be the next place, but it may take some decades.

[weemadando]

On the plus side, NZ being NZ (and not a third world shithole/third world shithole pretending to not be a third world shithole) they've got shit like strictly enforced building standards, excellent safety measures for their utilities and the distribution networks and a solid set of emergency services and a disaster response plan that doesn't consist of "quickly, bury all the bodies and pretend that there was never a city here."

Hopefully there won't be many (if any) fatalities and NZ can get it back together nice and quickly.

[Scottish Ninja]

The New Zealand Herald is reporting two serious injuries at this point; from the pictures there appears to have been some considerable damage to some buildings. No deaths seem to have been reported so far, so that's good. I just got off the phone with my mother, who's been visiting family down there; she's trying to figure out how to get home (we live in Chicago) since the airport has been closed until further notice. With any luck the trains will still be running, otherwise she might need to get my brother to drive her all the way to Picton.

[Spyder]

No reports on any deaths yet. We might be lucky this time.

[Stofsk]

No reports on any deaths yet. We might be lucky this time.

You're in a different part of the country aren't you? I saw guys on facebook post on your wall and I was wondering why then I looked at the news.

[Stark]

No reports on any deaths yet. We might be lucky this time.

Chch is no deaths; a whole lot of property damage though.

[Broomstick]

Still no reports of deaths, only a few serious injuries. Given the pictures, that is just remarkable.

Also noticed that while a lot of buildings seem to have collapsed facades/walls, they did not have pancaking buildings - a wall or three might be missing, but there is still some support for the roof (as an example). That might explain no deaths - no one had a building collapse on them and injuries were mostly from flying debris.

All the new agencies have pictures - rather than clutter the thread I'll just suggest you go to one of them.

[Spyder]

No reports on any deaths yet. We might be lucky this time.

You're in a different part of the country aren't you? I saw guys on facebook post on your wall and I was wondering why then I looked at the news.

Yeah, Wellington. Christchurch is down in the South Island.

[Stark]

Crashbang.co.nz has some pictures. Who needs building regulations huh?

[weemadando]

Crashbang.co.nz has some pictures. Who needs building regulations huh?

Fucking big government getting in the way of a profit by valuing the lives of it's citizens above the bottom lines of it's corporations. How dare they?

[Stuart Mackey]

I live in Christchurch.
My place is ok, and the western half of the city is ok, but we had a power outage for eight hours or so. Eastern half is badly hit and their are a lot of houses that are fucked, but no deaths from the accommodation aspect..housing standards in action there. Still a lot, thousands, of homes will be written off, it is thought at, this point.
Trains are out of commission and there is surface flooding and some contaminated water out east.

The CBD is another story, most of those buildings are old (by our standards) and facades were not secured to the framing, hence the collapsed facades. One building in the CBD sank a level, but then from the CBD west is all built on drained swamp (whole city was planned in London, sight unseen) its amazing there wasnt a lot more subsidence.
If this quake had hit during business hours, or full scale drinking hours, there would have been a small death toll, perhaps.

I do not know the fate of a lot of buildings in Chch, the engineers are going to be busy, but from what I know from the history of the Chch CBD I am not optimistic, but they performed well especially the earthquake strengthened ones.

Costs are looking to get to six billion or so, but as alluded to above, proper building standards worked and saved lives as intended, even if the buildings themselves are a write off.

Still a lot of aftershocks, had one as this was written.

Oh, yeah, power was back on within about eight hours for 98% of the city.

[Stuart Mackey]

Crashbang.co.nz has some pictures. Who needs building regulations huh?

I know a couple of the guys in those photo's

[Stuart Mackey]

No, the way the fault moves, this means the tension is transmitting along the fault. Wellington could be the next place, but it may take some decades.

Wellington is overdue for a good shake, we are told.

[Broomstick]

The CBD is another story, most of those buildings are old (by our standards) and facades were not secured to the framing, hence the collapsed facades. One building in the CBD sank a level, but then from the CBD west is all built on drained swamp (whole city was planned in London, sight unseen) its amazing there wasnt a lot more subsidence.

I believe the technical term for a building sinking into the ground during an earthquake is called "liquifaction", seen mostly on drained swamps, landfill, and areas of high water table. The shaking cases an interaction between soil and the water it holds such that it becomes a lot like quicksand or soup - thus the building sinks - and when the shaking stops so does the effect. Maybe one of our geology experts can confirm or deny that, or at least explain it better than I do.

[weemadando]

Yeah, liquifaction will generally be the cause of the sinking.

It can also be structural problems in foundations (ie collapsing/crumbling of some of the sub-terranean bits) that can lead to an appearance of sinking but that will generally have more drastic results than just liquifaction.

[Stark]

I know a couple of the guys in those photo's

Some of them are from my old digs in Queenspark. Valecrest Ave has a giant Ghostbusters crack down it, my cousin's place is a write-off, etc. My dad was staying on the west side and, as you said, things are much less damaged over there. It's remarkable how little damage there appears to be (of course to be structurally unsound a house doesn't need to be upside down).

[Dalton]

Underwhelmed much? Glad to see that there's no fatalities, but these two seem a bit cavalier about it.

[weemadando]

Ahh, that classic species, Boganus Australis.

[Stark]

Underwhelmed much? Glad to see that there's no fatalities, but these two seem a bit cavalier about it.

What good would crying about it do? What kind of pose should sadcase teenagers strike? Mobile phone pictures don't have journalistic standards.

[weemadando]

Sounds like NZ is facing the same problem Australia did in the aftermath of the bushfires with the gov't exempting people from personal responsibility and bailing out those who didn't have insurance.

Guess what. Your insurance not only covers your property and belongings, but also contributes to local emergency services budgets. By not having insurance, not only are you sponging off other people's sponsorship of the emergency services, but are also negating the whole fucking point of buying your own insurance if the gov't is just going to bail you out anyway.

Yes. This shit makes me very mad.

[Stuart Mackey]

Sounds like NZ is facing the same problem Australia did in the aftermath of the bushfires with the gov't exempting people from personal responsibility and bailing out those who didn't have insurance.

Guess what. Your insurance not only covers your property and belongings, but also contributes to local emergency services budgets. By not having insurance, not only are you sponging off other people's sponsorship of the emergency services, but are also negating the whole fucking point of buying your own insurance if the gov't is just going to bail you out anyway.

Yes. This shit makes me very mad.

Yep, the old moral hazard argument..and in this case subject to government reckonings on its popularity.. I am sure some one thinks its money well spent, but I am not he.

[Spectre_nz]

Although from what I picked up from the news, they're only paying out to people without insurance if they can show 'exceptional circumstance'; Like moving house days before the earthquake and not yet having the coverage change over, being genuinly unable to afford it and totally buggered now, or having a shifty insurance company that has claused them out of the coverage they thought they had.
National makes a habit of promising all sorts of grand things on the proviso that you can navigate the mindfield of clauses to qualify...
(Actually, that probably describes any New Zealand goverment in recent memory)

The news last night was full of stories of 'well, now we're fucked' becuase they won't be getting much. The gov' may change its tune I suppose. Plus, John Cambell loves his sensational sob-stories, it could all be rampant exageration.

I'm pretty amazed at how similar this quake was to the one in Hati and how we've had no deaths what-so-ever. Except that Lemure. Silly, Lemure, trying to swim.
But yay for building regulations. Even structures from before ww1 withstood the quake. I'd hate to see what an 8.0 would do though...