Morning at the Pancake Rocks
Paparoa National Park, South Island, NZ
Hello again everyone!
Well, what to say...it's been nearly 2 weeks now since a 6.3 magnitude aftershock rocked my beautiful home city to the core with far worse consequences than the original 7.1 earthquake on September 4th 2010. This "aftershock" is a different beast to the original Greendale rupture - that one was a strike-slip event (means moves sideways) coming up through the gravel of the Canterbury Plains. This aftershock was on a different fault (but triggered by the original quake and the stress it put on the area) which was much much shallower and much closer to the city (10 km instead of 30 km) and was a thrust or reverse type event (means the crust is pushed up on one side) with no gravels on top, which would have helped to dampen the effects. These thrust-type earthquakes tend to be far more damaging and violent than the strike-slip events anyway and it seems that part of the Port Hills has now been shunted up 40 cm or so. Friends of ours who live on the hills had their grand piano picked up and tossed completely over and their oven thrown out of the kitchen.
Sadly, the main difference between these earthquakes is that we lost many people this time including, for me personally, a wonderful photographer, general all-round lovely guy, and ex-president of the Nature Photographic Society, and, my old running coach, jolly man with a beaming smile and my ex-boss when I worked at Science Alive. These two great men will be sorely missed by many.
For Dave and myself it's been a pretty stressful time and we have been without power, water and sewerage for 13 days now. We finally got power last night which has really made a difference! Still without water and a toilet though so hoping that changes soon as are running out of digging space in the backyard! My parent's home was flooded as their house sank about a foot and a sand volcano erupted in their living room. We have (as a city) shoveled and scraped over 260,000 tonnes of sand this time compared to 30,000 from the 7.1 quake.
The most amazing thing about all of this has been the people. We have had so many folks from all over the place coming in, providing food, water, shoveling sand, just keeping us company. We have got to know our neighbours really well and supported each other through the ups and downs. I am extremely proud to be a New Zealander :)
Thanks very much to my flickr contacts who were wondering how we are and thanks to the larger group helping from all over the country and the international community. My heart goes out to every one else affected - Kia kaha (stay strong)
The above photo was taken on a rock collecting fieldtrip I did with Auckland University geologists the week before this latest quake.
Morning at the Pancake Rocks
Paparoa National Park, South Island, NZ
Hello again everyone!
Well, what to say...it's been nearly 2 weeks now since a 6.3 magnitude aftershock rocked my beautiful home city to the core with far worse consequences than the original 7.1 earthquake on September 4th 2010. This "aftershock" is a different beast to the original Greendale rupture - that one was a strike-slip event (means moves sideways) coming up through the gravel of the Canterbury Plains. This aftershock was on a different fault (but triggered by the original quake and the stress it put on the area) which was much much shallower and much closer to the city (10 km instead of 30 km) and was a thrust or reverse type event (means the crust is pushed up on one side) with no gravels on top, which would have helped to dampen the effects. These thrust-type earthquakes tend to be far more damaging and violent than the strike-slip events anyway and it seems that part of the Port Hills has now been shunted up 40 cm or so. Friends of ours who live on the hills had their grand piano picked up and tossed completely over and their oven thrown out of the kitchen.
Sadly, the main difference between these earthquakes is that we lost many people this time including, for me personally, a wonderful photographer, general all-round lovely guy, and ex-president of the Nature Photographic Society, and, my old running coach, jolly man with a beaming smile and my ex-boss when I worked at Science Alive. These two great men will be sorely missed by many.
For Dave and myself it's been a pretty stressful time and we have been without power, water and sewerage for 13 days now. We finally got power last night which has really made a difference! Still without water and a toilet though so hoping that changes soon as are running out of digging space in the backyard! My parent's home was flooded as their house sank about a foot and a sand volcano erupted in their living room. We have (as a city) shoveled and scraped over 260,000 tonnes of sand this time compared to 30,000 from the 7.1 quake.
The most amazing thing about all of this has been the people. We have had so many folks from all over the place coming in, providing food, water, shoveling sand, just keeping us company. We have got to know our neighbours really well and supported each other through the ups and downs. I am extremely proud to be a New Zealander :)
Thanks very much to my flickr contacts who were wondering how we are and thanks to the larger group helping from all over the country and the international community. My heart goes out to every one else affected - Kia kaha (stay strong)
The above photo was taken on a rock collecting fieldtrip I did with Auckland University geologists the week before this latest quake.