Earthquake in New Zealand

Thanks for the link..

Best wishes to everyone in NZ..

pleb1024 wrote in post #10847090
Roll call has been made on the kiwi thread, and we have managed to contact most of those we knew to be in christchurch. It sounds like a few may have lost the contents of their houses, and possibly the house. Thankfully there hasn't been any reported deaths as of yet in christchurch, and power is progressively coming back on.

This is my home town, yet I'm not there at the moment, which has been extremely hard. Most of the serious damage (building facade collapse etc) has been in the areas where the building predate the 1930s (when building codes were modified after a 7.8 earthquake in NZ). The major issue appears to be water + sewer pipes have broken across the city, and likely to be a problem for quite sometime.

Glad to hear that there isn't any loss of life. Prayers out to our POTN family there and the Christchurch residents.

here are some photos
http://www.stuff.co.nz​/4095395/7-1-earthquake-photos

further update for those interested.

While no deaths have been detected, it appears the damage to homes may be a bit worse than originally thought. According to new reports
- 90% of housing has power back on.
- 20% of the city still does not have running water, 300,000 litres (80,000 US Gal) is being brought in by train. Those that do have water are expected to use sparingly,and is recommended to boil due to it's unknown condition of the pipes.
- Current estimates that 20% of houses are uninhabitable, through damage, or sewer issues. Damage seems to fall into two categories - direct shake damage where buildings/walls have been shaken to the point of damage/collapse, and liquification damage, where foundations have been undermined, and while the house may look ok at first glance, but as the foundation is not supported anymore, the only thing to be done is to bulldoze the house. This is especially heart breaking for some, as some of the areas hit hard with liquifaction are relatively new houses (<5years old)
- The central city is still offlimits to the public, structual checks still in progress, and businesses not expected to reopen Monday.
- Most of the major older chch landmarks have survived relatively undamaged. Credit is being given to the last 10-15 years of earthquake strengthing work done.
- Some landmarks not so lucky - Baptist church on Oxford Tce, and the Repertory theatre have serious damage.
- Older landmarks of canterbury -especially the old grand homes, have been seriously damaged, or effectively destroyed
- There have been in excess of 30 aftershocks >4 in a 36-40 hour period which is wearing on people, especially children, as its preventing decent sleep for most people.
- Estimates for the bill currently around NZ$2billion - approx 1.8% of GDP (which if translated to US GDP - the same % of damage to USA would be US$269 billion (NZ$385 billion))
- Mother Nature isn't finished yet. Northwesterly winds have been forecasted for the next couple of days - 60-130kph (35-80mph). These winds are Foehn winds, which can cause problems even for cities that are normally in 1 piece.

Daniel

Yep, lotta sad people out there - houses shifted off their foundations, many properties have sank a half foot, causing manholes to poke out of the road..

The wind's a good one too, not too unusual - but it wont be helping peoples nerves. And it's Father's day here too!

yikes that wind is a little fun! Damn nor'westers!