Lynn, are you OK? Please check in.

My thoughts and prayers are with all our NZ friends! I suspect, though, that it may be a while before those in the quake zone will be checking in here.

Hi
The event is very much felt here in Australia, as our Prime Minister as well as the Foreign Minister made it clear , Kiwis are family.
Of course there are a lot of Kiwis (like me) here as well as Aussies there.
The Australian Government promptly dispatched a couple of planes loaded with personnel and supplies and more is on the way.
I was amazed to see that Israel (!) *also promptly sent a task force to NZ as well as other countries in our region.
Would be nice if people were like this all of the time...
Franco
Actually Israel sent off a team of doctors ,rescue workers and dogs to Haiti almost immediately after the tragedy struck there, so not that unusual for them.

I'm always impressed when I see modern governments dispatching their emergency aid like that, often through the military. Typically it is only the military that has the fast transportation and the ability to operate in a place that looks like a war zone.

--B.G.--

Wait a second

I thought that the government is incompetent at doing anything

Ooops wrong thread

I spoke with our close friends, Linda and Peder, who immigrated to Christchurch from Canada a few years ago. They were unscathed other than a few broken things in the house. Linda said that the after shocks were very strong and that the city centre is devastated. I feel so bad for the people who have lost loved ones in this quake.

i hope aarn packs are not located in that area.

Thanks for all your thoughts. These are indeed the most difficult of times. Maybe we were a bit complacent having survived a 7.1 MM shake in September, but this time is another scale of devastation none of us imagined 6 months after the initial earthquake. Christchurch will have top rebuild from the ground up. Most of the central business district is uninhabitable, and that's where are centre of jobs and tourism and culture are (were) all based. First we have a lot of grieving to do, then a huge community and national (and hopefully international) support to see us through the months without sewage, potable water, loss of jobs and just plain living in the constant stress of the next aftershock.

I am not a fund-raiser by nature, but if any of you feel you can spare some change, I would urge you to channel it to the NZ Red Cross earthquake appeal. They will make sure that those who are most in need will be provided support. My family is fine. Plenty of stored water, food and cooking supplies we've put away for such a rainy day. I encourage all of you to do the same, because disasters strike when it suits them, not necessarily when YOU are ready for them. And lay in plenty for your neighbors who may not have the foresight or means to provide for themselves. Kudos to Trail Designs for making available and assortment of Caldera cones to help with water sterilisation.

Be safe

Lynn aka Allison

Very relieved to know you're well, Lynn. The ever-climbing death toll is distressing indeed--my thoughts are with your countrymen. I'm shocked that a quake of that magnitude caused so much damage--such are the variables of a complex foe.

Thanks for the tip on donations.

Best wishes,

Rick

Lynn,

Good to hear from you. I tried to PM you a few days back, but this wasn't an option on your profile. Up here in Wellington we are thinking of you all - it was always meant to be us who got the "big one".

Thanks for letting us know that you and your family are OK, Lynn. That's a relief for your many pals here on BPL. It crushed me to see the photos of the damage, especially that wonderful cathedral. Chch is such a beautiful city, and its people are wonderful. I'm sorry you took such a huge hit like this.

Hi Lynn

Phew!
Glad to hear from you.

Cheers

Christchurch is built on sand over a high water table so most of the damage was caused by the water table being pushed up to mix with the sand liquefying the soil, that making the foundations particularly of "rigid" (pre -earthquake proof) buildings , collapse.
BTW, not all of the houses are built on sand, that is also the reason some fell some did not.
Apparently Los Angeles is a bit like that,( close to a fault line built on sand over a water table ).
Franco

San Francisco - that area next to the bay they created with fill material.

Portland and Seattle have similar areas - and we're due for a bigger quake.

"Christchurch is built on sand over a high water table so most of the damage was caused by the water table being pushed up to mix with the sand liquefying the soil, that making the foundations particularly of "rigid" (pre -earthquake proof) buildings , collapse.
BTW, not all of the houses are built on sand, that is also the reason some fell some did not."

All sorts of buildings have been affected. Houses near the edges of cliffs, houses at the top of the hill built into solid basalt, buildings built to high standards of EQ codes. Magnitude 6.3 doesn't sound like much, but as a geologist friend of mine points out, this quake had ground accelerations of 2Gs, (the 7.1 we had in September was only 0.3G) and the centre of the quake was so close and shallow that the P and S waves hit the central city almost simultaneously. Having soggy-silty soil just amplified the waves. The upshot of all this is that the forces faced by the buildings were ~50% stronger than the building codes were designed to take. This will no doubt mean a re-think for building codes of the future, for everyone who lives in quake prone regions.

Lynn,
glad to hear you are ok, and to let you know the outside world is still thinking of you and all those who have suffered in Christchurch.

You have probably heard about Ken Ring's prediction for a further quake on the 19th March. This has been dismissed by scientists because Ken bases his predictions on the motions of the Moon and other celestial bodies. However, he correctly forecast the Feb 22nd quake to occur between the 15th and 25th. Rafaele Bendandi took the exact secret of his earthquake prediction method to the grave with him, but he also was using the planetary hypothesis. I've annotated one of Bendandi's prediction and result diagrams (from April 1926) below. There will be a full Moon within an hour of the closest perigee for 18 years on the 19th March, coincident with the 12 year perigee of Jupiter. How these solar system dynamic forces will play out I don't know, but I would advise you to seriously consider following Ken Ring's advice, just to be on the safe side. Christchurch's nearby 'dormant' volcanos seem to have been creating a lot more hot springs recently, and the number of minor quakes is still rising.
http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/ 533

All the best and stay safe.

Rog

.

Rog, thanks for your thoughts. I am amazed a man of science such as youself would take someone like Ken Ring seriously though!

Ring has also predicted earthquakes for, at least, the 24th of September, the 1st and 7th of October the first week in November, the 20th to the 27th of January, the 1st to the 5th and 19th to the 25th of March and the 17th of April.

In fact, in one post, giving him the +/- one day he needs in order to claim he predicted the February 22nd quake, he paints more than half of the time between the start of January and the end of March as earthquake risk.

In October he claimed the aftershock sequence would die down, missing the major rumble on boxing day and several times he declared that it was unlikely Christchurch would be face another major quake (tragically wrong).

And that's just earthquakes...his weather predictions are equally useless IMHO. But Time will tell. Hopefully I'll be out of Christchurch before the 19th. I certainly won't be in a high rise concrete building or anywhere near un-reinforced masonry.

I should add that we are all expecting at least one more big earthquake when our Alpine Fault goes. It, like the San Andreas, is overdue for a big move somewhere east of Christchurch. They don't call us the shaky isles without good reason!!

Jason, I hear you guys have had a few small rumbles up your way recently. Hope they're not leading up to anything bigger.

Yep we have had a couple of small rumbles in Wellington. Usually we would have just shrugged and moved on, but everyone is pretty spooked at the moment.

Lynn - are you leaving Christchurch for good?

NM

Edited by Franco on 03/11/2011 05:58:37 MST.

Friend of a friend unearthed this pic from...I don't know where but would love to provide an attribution. It's supposedly Christchurch during the quake, taken from a hillside far above.



Spooky.

Rick