Oh New Zealand ...

[blamebrampton]

I'm not sure how much news coverage it is receiving in the Northern Hemisphere, but Christchurch, New Zealand's most picturesque major city, had a massive earthquake early today. The good news is that no one was killed by the quake, though there were two serious injuries and I read that one person died of a heart attack. But there is very serious damage to the city, looking at the photos I saw some of my favourite shopping blocks without front walls, which is terrible for the owners and those who enjoyed the community as it was.

Most of my friends in the city have checked in, so far a car and two chimneys and lots of small things broken for them, but insurance should cover it all. No power for most, and the water, which is some of the best tap water in the world -- that level of deliciousness you only get from filtering through stone for a few thousand years before pumping into the pipes, needs boiling before drinking. I think my flistees tend to be mostly North Island and Dunedin, but think there are a few ChCh folks out there, I hope you're well! 

It says something about how serious Kiwis are when they enforce building regulations on their tectonically exciting islands that a quake bigger than the one that hit Haiti could cause such comparatively minimal damage. But it's still quite a serious hit. And the economy over there has not been fabulous. I hope that the insurers and government are able to bring out the money that will be needed, at least builders and people who lay tarmac will do well out of it. And I feel sure that Australia will help, even if we have no proper government to be making offers to yours yet.

In other news, Reign of Fire is the best flu movie ever.

Comments

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

Being connected to the earthquake engineering world through my job, it was quite a surprise that magnitude. They get a lot of 5s and 6s, but a 7 is rare. I've been on the Intranets to my contacts, and yeah, lots of frightened people and no water, but not a catastrophe.

As an aside, nothing really can be compared with Haiti in terms of buildings codes, etc. They just didn't exist. Probably a reasonable comparison is the 6.9 earthquake we had here in California where we had a freeway collapse and all fatalities were due to that.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I was surprised it was on the South Island. My Wellington pals are so blasé about tremors and quakes because they happen so very very often up there, but not so much in ChCh.

And yes, the devastation in Haiti was very specific, but I do think the lack of devastation is something the Kiwis should be proud of. In the homes of my friends, things did as they were designed to and fell outwards if they had to fall, rather than inwards and onto people. Of course, it was extreme good luck that it happened at the witching hour so the streets were quite empty and all those falling outwards things fell onto no one.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

The codes *do* work. There are social aspects to earthquakes that don't get much "press" but as an example there was what was considered a moderate earthquake in Izmit, Turkey, with horrendous damage (I think the magnitude was something like 6.8). Six months later there was a 7.1 earthquake in Taiwan. Same code. I think 30,000 died in Turkey, under a thousand in Taiwan. The difference was that the amount of graft during a massive construction boom in Turkey was the culprit. The buildings had no rebar. These 3-4 story aparment buildings were like gigantic sandcastles. I don't know how some people sleep at night.