ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Earthquake in New Zeeland

Let's keep the New Zeelanders in our thoughts and prayers after a massive earthquake and tsunami that hit near Christchurch area where we have members at. Please keep us posted if you from any of them

Hey thanks sparkyinak,
This was quite a large earthquake that was centred on a place called Culverden, which is about half way between Christchurch and the top of the south island and it is quite a way inland.
The quake was recorded as 7.5 on the Richter scale, which is much larger than the one that struck Christchurch in 2012.
It was relatively fortunate that the quake was 15km (9 miles) deep, although it claimed the lives of two people in Kaikoura when a building collapsed.
Thankfully though any sort of tsunami predicted never eventuated, that could have had a very devastating effect here as a lot of the south island is populated near the coastline.
Will keep you folks posted.
Here is a link to our local news website:
[color:#000099][b]Stuff NZ[/b][/color]

Glad that you're ok

prayer in my heart for the New Zealanders, and hope people safeness!

As a code guy, I am curious how the newer buildings are holding up. Do the seismic codes work?
When we were driving around Christchurch (2015) we saw a lot of the stuff they were building and they looked pretty tough.

They do up here in Alaska

Greg,
The earthquakes in Christchurch were a serious kick in the pants for not only building designers here, but the people that construct them as well.
I was at the CTV building after it had collapsed in 2012, as a Fire Officer and to see a building that had had actual floors shear off as they had collapsed, it was almost surreal, like something from a movie set.
But, mistakes like that need to be learned from and building codes strengthened to ensure this sort of thing never happens again.
At the end of the day, it is up to the building designers and engineers to MAKE SURE that their plans are adhered to, to the letter.
One other thing needs to be said though, in that a lot of the buildings that did collapse or partially collapse, were quite old and were of double brick construction, where any tie wires between the two brick layers could have become compromised over time.

What we have seen in Kaikoura and Culverden, is that the majority of the buildings that did collapse or were seriously compromised is that these were older wooden buildings and while these do tend to have a bit more "give" with sudden ground movements, I have heard reports that when the initial quake happened the ground moved at 3m (9ft) per second, I mean, try and design any building to withstand that sort of longitudinal stress?

Similar experiences，

At 2:28pm ,On May 12th , 2008， A powerful earthquake was centred on a county called Wenchuan, which is about 250KM far away from my home! measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale,and 15km deep.
I was fall off my bed when earthquake happened,and felt strong shaking from earth, almost standing instability, I never had this feeling before.
Wenchuan earthquake has caused more than 60000 people dead. power, water, communications disrupted......it's a terrible memories!

Didn't feel the ground shake on last weeks earthquakes, although on Nov 14 one of my pendulum clocks stopped working, As I was in Australia, didn't notice it there.
There were small earthquake movements in the Auckland region, as reported by my daughter who was home.

About 2 months ago there was an earthquake in Auckland, I woke up prior to the event at about 0400 hrs.

Just as reference, Auckland is about 900 kms (550 miles) North of Kaikoura.