New Zealand Quake

[Jim Richards]

I hope all of our Pelican BBS friends in NZ are doing alright. And everyone else there, too.

[widebody911]

Breaking news: New Zealand earthquake causes widespread damage - Chicago International Travel | Examiner.com

[tabs]

I didn't predict it...

[Matt Smith]

Been watching it on TV here in Auckland NZ all morning. My wife's brother lives in Christchurch so she's been talking to him on the (very poor) cellphone coverage at the moment

Looks like carnage throughout the city. Christchurch has lots of historic buildings in it and many brick buildings have partially collapsed. Civil Defence just declared a state of emergency a couple of minutes ago. Power/water is out in most of the city, thankfully not too many injuries yet. Sewerage pipes ruptured, roads split up etc. Lots more coverage of the surrounding areas coming in now and it's not looking very pretty.

I'd say this is the biggest event we've had in a major New Zealand city to date. Negative 2 degrees celcius tonight and no power. Lots of houses have lost thier chimneys- hypothermia a real issue. Hang in there Christchurch.

[enzo1]

New Zealand earthquake rips a new fault line across the world... moving one side of the earth 11ft to the right

Read more: New Zealand earthquake rips a new fault line across the world... moving one side of the earth 11ft to the right | Mail Online

[GH85Carrera]

Now things are getting serious!

Christchurch earthquake cuts beer supply - National - NZ Herald News

[GH85Carrera]

Wow!

[Mothy]

Earthquake 7.1 on the richter scale but zero deaths in NZ. Compare that to Haiti.

Whilst there are a lot of older buildings damaged, the more modern building code (which recognised they were in an Earthquake prone area) has meant that fewer buildings colapsed where they were sleeping at the time.

[GothingNC]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Now things are getting serious!

Christchurch earthquake cuts beer supply - National - NZ Herald News

They are prepared since they have "reserve" stock in other parts of the country

[Bill Douglas]

This kiwi is OK.

I live in Wellington, which is unaffected by hte earthquake. It was one crazy line that just happened to go smack through the middle of Chrischurch city. The last time this like moved was 16 thousand years ago, so it was rather unfortunate timing for the Chrischurch guys. A friend has a paint shop and I visualised him mopping up 100's of litres of paint but not a single one was spilt plus his house and rentals are all OK too. It was just a bad luck thing to be on top of the split. As you can imagine; the sewage pipes, water mains, electricity and gas pipes have broken so it's a big job

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by Mothy

where they were sleeping at the time.

There was a young guy who was asleep in his upstairs bedroom and the wall fell out at the same time as the roof fell in and he kinda surfed out through the wall and ended up in a pile of bricks on the lawn outside. Typical young guy, not a scratch on him LOL.

Yep, we are the same as you guys and have always has strict building codes, inluding quality of concrete and bricks, hence us withstanding earthquakes reasonably well.