Earthquake!

[Petra]

Wow.

My mum just emailed me to tell me that they have just had a big shake out at the farm. The farm buildings are all built in a swiss chalet style - I'll post pics of the place later, after I've got Zoe to school - so they are pretty solid buildings. However, on one of the houses a chimney collapsed and all the other houses look like war zones, mum told me. Broken bits and pieces everywhere. Mum's not usually rattled about much - only mice, really - but she said she's shaking and completely freaked out. To add to it all, they are in the middle of a storm that is causing flooding and landslides across the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

Whoa!

Pleased I'm not there!!

[viscousmemories]

Whoa. I take it your Mum lives there? Was there any damage to her place? At least everyone is okay, I presume.

[Hugo Holbling]

I was going to try surfing the Gisborne area. Back to the drawing board, methinks.

[Dingfod]

Holy shite! No injuries I hope. Your mum lives in NZ? Isn't NZ pretty much a volcanic island chain? Aren't earthquakes a fairly regular occurence, kind of like California?

Earthquakes. *shudder* (pun intended) They're just one example of how puny we are compared to the forces of nature. At least with a tornado you can seek shelter, but with an earthquake you could go outside to escape falling debris and still get swallowed up by a crack opening up in the earth.


Warren

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by warrenly

At least with a tornado you can seek shelter, but with an earthquake you could go outside to escape falling debris and still get swallowed up by a crack opening up in the earth.

Some science geek will probably contradict me, but I read somewhere that this is a highly unlikely occurrence because earthquakes are the result of two plates moving closer together, not farther apart. So the surface layer is more apt to compress than expand. Or something like that...

[Hugo Holbling]

There was a quake in the news at a similar time last year in Fjordland, as i recall. NZ is right between the Pacific and Australian plates and there are close to 200 quakes a year. This particular incident was between the Axial tectonic belt and the Taupo volcanic zone, i think.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

Some science geek will probably contradict me, but I read somewhere that this is a highly unlikely occurrence because earthquakes are the result of two plates moving closer together, not farther apart. So the surface layer is more apt to compress than expand. Or something like that...

Actually, either one can occur. There have been cases in California of cracks opening up, of uplift on one side of the fault, or a drop on one side, or even a rise or fall of land in a large area. However, you may be right about it not being a realistic danger, according to this site on Earthquake Myths.


Warren

[Petra]

The earthquakes don't read high on the scale, but they were shallow and covered one hell of a large area. There is more damage with this quake in places than there was about 5 years ago when my sister and I were in a spate of quakes that lasted about two weeks. At that time the biggest shake neared 7 on the scale, but was quite localised to Rotorua and very deep, so althought it was scary we were not too shaken. [pun intended ]. Speaking to my sister last night, she said that the main jolt yesterday was far worse than that, although reports say it was of a lower magnitude. With the flooding that that area has also been hit with this weekend, the Eastern BoP is in a state of emergency.

I haven't spoken to mum today to see what damage has been discovered in the light of day - their phones are out at the moment - but the quakes started at about 4pm yesterday and at 11 last night mum said they were still coming, although not as big as the main jolt.

It's havoc over there.


We are known as the shaky isles and we're used to tremors, but this ain't no tremor, it's a real live grown-up quake, baby. Rockin' an a-rollin'.

[Petra]

This site shows that they had 11 shakes between midday and midnight yesterday. The two biggest jolts were at 4.22pm and 6.40pm.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/recent_quakes.html

Here is some news info. They appear to have got the magnitude wrong, however. http://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/default.asp?id=41405

More news: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2975513a10,00.html

Interestingly, only 10 days ago a report came out expressing fears of a major earthquake in the South Island: http://breaking.tcm.ie/2004/07/09/story156204.html


There have been two known deaths this weekend in the BoP region due to these freak forces of nature - I hope there will be no more.

[Petra]

I've been trying to find pics to show you that the buildings are pretty solid out at the farm, but I'm having difficulty with that. However, you can see the office (behind the golf cart, with the flower boxes) and the back of the game keepers house in this pic. Neither of those buildings is the house which had the chimney collapse on it, but the houses are all built in the same style.

That's not my mother in the pic, btw.

[Petra]

here you can see a map of the region and where the epicentre of the quake was: http://www.geonet.org.nz/x2266243g_l.html

I have taken a screen shot and pointed to where my mum and sister lives, and where the woman was killed by the gum tree that fell during the quake. I have a friend that lives in the area that the woman was killed in, and he said they felt it very strongly there, so imagine how bad it must've felt out at the farm, considering that she is so close to the epicentre.

[Petra]

[off topic] Who keeps knocking Hugo's posts back a rep point? Sorry, but that just smacks of personal issues. I mean, wtf?! [/off topic]

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by lunachick

[off topic] Who keeps knocking Hugo's posts back a rep point? Sorry, but that just smacks of personal issues. I mean, wtf?! [/off topic]

Hugo isn't the only one it's been happening to. The issue of possible abuse of votes came to my attention when I noticed several of livius' posts being downvoted, and since then my and Godot's posts have also been voted down on no obvious basis. All the more reason we need to fix the voting system we have in place, I think. Unfortunately the voting system as it is today doesn't prevent someone with personal issues from abusing someone else with negative votes. I don't know that we can do anything to prevent that short of making it much more difficult. We've been talking about it in this thread for a couple days now. Join in!

[Petra]

Email received this very moment from mum:

Well guys, it does not look so good, we had another 4.6er and I only hope it will stop soon. Mikes brickwall behind his fire has to be done all new , Hotwatercylinders moved around and started leaking , Rita’s house looks like a war zone

It’s a real bugger.

Maybe you could write to Nina & Walter and tell them the news.

Thanks for everything

A shaky Oma



So the quakes are still coming it seems. Hope they don't get any bigger. And I sure as hell hope they do not foretell an impending eruption. Damned volcanoes an' stuff!

[freemonkey]

Originally Posted by lunachick

but she said she's shaking and completely freaked out.

We have a good shaker here a few years ago. It was strong, but deep so not as damaging as it could have been. But it seemed to go on for a very long time. I remember feeling pretty shaky [pun intended] for quite awhile afterward, like PTSD. Every time a truck went by, my heart would miss a beat.

[Petra]

Originally Posted by freemonkey

We have a good shaker here a few years ago. It was strong, but deep so not as damaging as it could have been. But it seemed to go on for a very long time. I remember feeling pretty shaky [pun intended] for quite awhile afterward, like PTSD. Every time a truck went by, my heart would miss a beat.

I think mum is feeling a bit like that, freemonkey. There are still plenty of tremors and every new one makes her all the more nervous. The fact that they are seriously isolated where she is is also causing her stress. At the moment, the only way in or out is by helicopter. If something really bad were to happen, and it knocked the phones out again, they would be screwed. They are so isolated that they don't even get cellphone coverage out there.

The depth of the quake has a lot to do with how it is felt. Anything above 40kms is considered shallow and these quakes were at 5kms deep, so although 5-odd magnitude doesn't sound so bad, it's causing a fair bit of woe where she is, especially as she is so close to the epicentre. And to top it off, more rain is expected soon, which will exacerbate what is already the worst flooding the region has seen in a century. Fortunately for her, the flooding has been the least of their worries as they are quite high up, but it is still enough rain to have to worry about the livestock.

Talking to her on the phone this evening, she sounded exhausted, scared and demoralised. (Demoralised because the owner of the property, Rita, was only interested in the damage to property and didn't once ask after the safety and wellbeing of mum and the rest of the staff. )