NZ Quake

[Dave MartinParticipant @davemartin29320]

Hope all OK after new quake *link*

[Dave MartinParticipant @davemartin29320]

Hope all OK

[StovepipeParticipant @stovepipe]

+1

Dennis

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Our regular poster, Ian SC, is from that area I believe – hope all is well. Trust he will let us know in due course.

Norman

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Posted by Dave Martin on 13/11/2016 14:29:26:

Hope all OK after new quake *link*

+1.

V8.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Its a lot bigger than the 2011 one, but it looks like its deeper and further away from big settlements. Hopefully that means casualties and damage will be a lot less.

Best wishes to everyone in the area.

Neil

[Nathan SharpeParticipant @nathansharpe19746]

What's the time difference between UK and NZ ? Ian SC was on at 08.32 forum time. Nathan

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nathan Sharpe on 13/11/2016 22:22:22:

What's the time difference between UK and NZ ? Ian SC was on at 08.32 forum time. Nathan

.

Wellington is +13 hours

MichaelG.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by NJH on 13/11/2016 16:32:36:

Our regular poster, Ian SC, is from that area I believe – hope all is well. Trust he will let us know in due course.

Norman

.

I am sure he will be fine.

He's a Kiwi. ……….. Those guy's chew rocks for breakfast and then still hungry again by 11am

But being serious. It was a big quake so I would imagine some infrastructure issues. One may be the internet connections of many folk.

Nick

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

Hi All, Ian is south of the most affected area…he is actually pretty close to the epicentre of the first Canterbury quake near Darfield…so hopefully things should be OK there. There has been loss of power in some areas.

There are two known fatalities so far. As Neil says, it is a reasonably sparsely inhabited area, although Wellington is close enough to have copped some damage. The area is quite mountainous so there are landslides and damage to roads and rail. Also there is some bad weather heading for that area, which is not really what you need at a time like this.

We felt it quite strongly here in Cambridge, which if you check your maps you will see is quite a way up the North Island. We heard something tapping the wall, a belt or a strap or something, then realised that the bed felt a bit like it was on a boat. We took shelter in a doorway, as the shaking went on for quite some time…I knew from that that it was a big one somewhere. It was felt pretty much the length of the country.

The boffins are saying that it was actually two quakes practically simultaneous, one near Kaikoura which was a thrust fault and one further north which was slip-strike. There are also aftershocks now, and those who have followed the Canterbury quakes will know that this can go on for a very long time. The quake that killed so many in Christchurch was actually an aftershock of the earlier Darfield quake. There is also a 20% or so chance that this is all a precursor to something bigger. This one was magnitude 7.5, the Darfield one was 7.1. That actually means that this was about 4 times the energy. But of course the damage is another thing, that depends on local conditions like soil properties and of course density of population.

regards, John

[Neil LickfoldParticipant @neillickfold44316]

I am in Hamilton and it was felt here. A friend lost about 1/2m of water out of his pool just filled in the weekend, about 18 inches in real measurements. The lights were swaying at work this afternoon from an after shock. On the news they just mentioned that the fault area is about 100 km long, so one of the biggest known for here in recent times.

Neil Lickfold

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Just found this update **LINK** on the News pages.

http://news.sky.com/story/hundreds-of-aftershocks-rattle-nz-after-75-quake-10656942

Best Wishes to all

MichaelG.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

This would be one hell of a ditch to wake up to, hope and prayers for anyone involved…

Michael W

[Eric CoxParticipant @ericcox50497]

My daughter lives just south of Dunedin and slept through it.She didn't know about it until her husband, a volunteer fireman was called in to duty.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I was sitting here at my computor when things started to move switched on the radio so I could hear what was going on, then I went to go to the GeoNet site to see where the earthquake was, and found I'd gone off line (dial up), got back on line. As I'm the street coordinator for the Neighbourhood Support Network (started after the quakes 6 years ago), I thought I should get out and about to see if anyone was having a problem.

Funny thing happened yesterday, a new family moved in across the street, so off I go to introduce myself , and the support network!

The quake here felt about the same as the big one in central Christchurch, not too bad. Darfield is situated out on a vast alluvial plain, and this dampens the earth movement (just having an after shock).

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 14/11/2016 11:05:14

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Ian S C on 14/11/2016 11:04:33:

The quake here felt about the same as the big one in central Christchurch, not too bad. Darfield is situated out on a vast alluvial plain, and this dampens the earth movement (just having an after shock).

Glad you and Kiwi members are OK.

Now is probably not a good time to mention liquefaction then

Neil

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 14/11/2016 11:58:23:Glad you and Kiwi members are OK.

Now is probably not a good time to mention liquefaction then

Neil;

My year in Wellington, quite a while ago now, I learned quite a few new words – that Tsunami one – I asked what all the signs meant and was told (of course), and, over the hill from Lower Hutt there was a small town where it was all subject to liquefaction, so no new building was allowed there.

And, why Lambton Quay in Wellington was not on the water, and why the cricket pitch was called "the Basin" – one day a century or more ago the land rose something like 13 feet…

My first day of work, there was an earth quake as I was trying to decipher what train to take home that night; I did wonder why the stone building was shaking, and why everyone suddenly knew that they'd be delayed… (it was a mild quake)

Interesting place to live, and very interesting people. I, too, wish that all are safe.

John.

[Jonathan PerssonParticipant @jonathanpersson14966]

Here is some video footage of the railway line around Kaikoura there was only one train operating in the area, they stopped it and tied it down. http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/kaikoura-rail-line-decimated-2016111413

[Dave MartinParticipant @davemartin29320]

Posted by Jonathan Persson on 14/11/2016 17:07:09:

Here is some video footage of the railway line around Kaikoura there was only one train operating in the area, they stopped it and tied it down. http://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/kaikoura-rail-line-decimated-2016111413

With that amount of earth movement, miraculous no greater loss of life.

(also seriously impressed with the apparent tensile strength of that continuously-welded rail!)

Dave

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

We didn't have liquifaction here in Darfield, and I didn't collect a sample from the city, it seems to make quite a good grinding paste.

Quite a lot of Wellington is built on reclaimed land, as are some other cities here, these areas tend to liquify in earthquake conditions. Christchurch is built on swamp, and sandy areas.

The poor people stranded in Kaikura are having to put up with eating Crayfish and salad.    Ian S C

Here is a photo from the previous quake showing what can happen to welded rails.

Edited By Ian S C on 15/11/2016 12:08:16

[StovepipeParticipant @stovepipe]

You just can't trust that flexi-track.

Dennis

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

This coming weekend is the 75th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Navy, there are naval ships from arround the world, Canada, USA, Australia, and a few others, plus maritime reconnaissance aircraft from Japan, and USA. Some have arrived, more tomorrow.

They can't get too close to shore at Kaikura as the sea bed has risen at least 2.5 meters.

An RNZAF Hercules did a couple of air drops today, a generator and other bits this morning (WED), and 5000L of drinking water in the afternoon.

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 16/11/2016 15:06:52

[mike TParticipant @miket56243]

Thanks for the update Ian.

You Kiwis are a mighty resilient bunch. Such community spirit, everyone is doing everything possible to help each other. We could do well to learn from your example.

My youngest is a builder and is in Christchurch for a year. Plenty of brickwork for him to do there!!!!

Mike

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Brickwork in an earthquake zone? Bad idea

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

Actually brickwork in the traditional sense is very rare in NZ, and would not have been allowed in new construction for many years. What is quite common is what is called brick veneer, where the frame of the house is wooden, but has a single layer of bricks attached to the framework with metal straps nailed to the frame and trapped in the mortar between the layers of bricks. This has been shown to perform quite well in earthquakes, and in the worst case the bricks will end up on the ground around the house. While this is not good, if the earthquake is that severe you don't want to be close to any sort of building. In the North Island, where I live, it has always been noticeable that there were more brick veneer houses as you travelled north through the Waikato and on to Auckland. This was mostly because the earthquake risk is lower there.

Christchurch in particular had a problem with a lot of older buildings that were built with brick in the more traditional way, especially older shops. These tend to be particularly bad since they have large openings at the front for the doors and windows, often with a heavy facade above. But then, the largest number of casualties were in a relatively modern building where both the design and the checking of it were incompetent.

One thing you can see in the pictures is the complete failure of a chimney at the Waiau pub. That is an old building, and it looks like the chimney will have been done with the old style lime mortar. This was not all that strong even when new, and deteriorates with age. Those bricks will have been sitting on a weak layer of lightly bonded sand and as you will see if you go looking for pictures of the quake on the web, the brickwork has just turned into individual bricks.

There will be some high rise buildings in Wellington demolished as a result of this quake. It should be noted that designing for earthquakes means that the building should not collapse during the quake, it does not mean that it will necessarily be usable afterwards. In absorbing the energy, the reinforced concrete is likely to turn into a steel cage full of rubble. Although Wellington is quite a way from the epicentre, this quake went on for quite a long time, and apparently this was quite hard on the buildings.

John

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