Just because I feel like it, here's the last 24 hours of aftershocks following the Christchurch, New Zealand Earthquake of 7.1 Magnitude.

Nobody was killed.
Two people were slightly injured.

About 4 billion dollars damage.

After 2655 aftershocks, I'm getting rather tired of having the earth move.

Quote:

Christchurch Quake Map
Sun, 07 Nov 2010 21:01 NZDT
Last 24 hours
28 of 28 quakes (2655 total):

First column is Richter Magnitude.

2.5M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 20:00
2.5M, depth: 16km 7/11/2010 17:59
2.4M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 16:25
2.6M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 12:51
2.4M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 12:41
2.9M, depth: 12km 7/11/2010 12:26
2.8M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 11:54
2.6M, depth: 6km 7/11/2010 11:08
2.4M, depth: 6km 7/11/2010 09:15
2.4M, depth: 11km 7/11/2010 07:17
2.3M, depth: 6km 7/11/2010 05:34
2.4M, depth: 6km 7/11/2010 05:21
2.4M, depth: 9km 7/11/2010 05:10
3.6M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 04:53
2.4M, depth: 9km 7/11/2010 04:10
2.4M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 03:33
3.2M, depth: 6km 7/11/2010 03:06
4.6M, depth: 9km 7/11/2010 02:52
2.3M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 02:25
2.3M, depth: 16km 7/11/2010 01:51
2.1M, depth: 6km 7/11/2010 01:36
2.1M, depth: 7km 7/11/2010 01:29
2.3M, depth: 4km 7/11/2010 01:21
2.7M, depth: 5km 7/11/2010 00:49
2M, depth: 19km 7/11/2010 00:23
2.4M, depth: 12km 6/11/2010 22:07
2.6M, depth: 77km 6/11/2010 21:51
3M, depth: 14km 6/11/2010 21:44

Wow. Hope the china was safely in the cupboards.

---

Part time Quantum Elephant hollower

All the china and glassware has survived so far. The last shock an hour ago -

4.2M, depth: 5km 8/11/2010 00:39

- rattled the walls, but everything that could fall has fallen.

If you'd like some pretty pictures, this map is quite interesting.

[www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz]

My house is somewhere under the little dot beneath the word "Christchurch' on the map.

ohhh, I misunderstood at first. I thought there was a new earthquake. This is just leftovers from what, 2 months ago?

I suppose it's a bit like being on a boat after a while. You try to keep something reasonably stable to grab onto within reaching distance at all times?

So I hope you can see the ocean from your house? Something has to make all that wobbling about worth it!

Can you feel the aftershocks when you're driving?

I'm about 10 km from the coast, so if I see the ocean then there's been a tsunami.

Driving - I was driving during a 5.7 aftershock and felt something that I thought might have been a quake. I arrived home about two minutes later and was told that yes, there had been a quake. If I'd been told otherwise I'd have been quite happy to believe it, though.

Driving during the original 7.1 quake would have been unpleasant though - some roads had fissures of up to a a couple of metres wide.

Wishing you *no* tsunamis, as you've had enough trouble so far this year. I was hoping you were far enough up a hill to at least be able to see the ocean on a clear day, but I guess being able to drive to it when you are in the mood would be good enough. Are the beaches sandy or rocky?

(not sure why I am asking, as the likelihood of me being off my current continent ever again are extremely tiny, unless someone dumps a truckload of cash in my yard or something...)

We had a very small earthquake here several years ago. It woke me up. Not much wakes me, including the alarm clock. So when I woke up, thinking "was that an earthquake?" I figured it was. No one believed me until the news came on.

It's a singularly unpleasant feeling to have the earth move unexpectedly. (when would it be expected... hmmm...) I hope your earth settles down quickly, MC, and that nothing important to you gets damaged while the ground settles into its new formation.

Thanks for the thought.

The beaches on Christchurch's East suburbs of New Brighton and North Beach are all sandy over about 10 km, but a few km further South there's a mixture of rocky beaches surrounded by sandy bays.

About 180 km North there's Kaikoura (Food/Meal Crayfish) which is mainly rocky, where you can go to swim with dolphins or whales, or scuba among the rocks to spear dinner.

<advert> New Zealand's nice. There's real good scenery and stuff. There's different things all close like so you can have a beach party then drive for an hour and go skiing.</advert>

Quakes - It's now two months after the 7.1 starter quake, and we're up to aftershock 2,800. They say we can expect up to two years of aftershocks before they drop to the unnoticeable level.

Me - I still notice.

Ha! We had a shock of (my guess) about 3.5 as I was writing this. It felt and sounded exactly as though someone just dumped a truckload of cash in my yard.

I'm still finding it very hard to imagine this. We have pot holes left from last winter that need filing, what on earth happens to a 2m fissure in a road? Does one side remain higher than the other? Does anybody try and repair it when aftershocks are still happening? Will the likelihood of 2 years of aftershocks mean that there will be an increase in the sale of plastic beakers? Do they, in fact, impact on daily life in any quantifiable way?

Most (all?) of the road damage happened with the original quake on September 4th. (7.1M is roughly equivalent to 670 kilotons of TNT.) The City has done an amazing repair job and apart from some of the inner city where roads are blocked because damaged buildings are still being demolished the roads are all passable.

The impact on daily life is harder to express. For my part, even the big ones don't bother me. However, I have elderly friends who are reduced to panic by something at the "Do you think that might have been another aftershock?" level.

The list of quakes and Richter Magnitude over one day in my first message is fairly typical of the last 10 weeks - a whole swarm under 3, one at 3.6 and one at 4.6. (They were a lot stronger and more frequent in the first week.

Under 2 would not even move tea in an over-full teacup, and they don't show in the list.
Up to about four might sound loud and rumbling, but would be unlikely to spill your tea.
From four to five you'll hear it and feel it, the cup will rattle and spill but is unlikely to fall over.
Up to 6 and your cup will probably shake out of the saucer and spill the tea.
Up to 7 and plaster from cracking walls and ceilings will get into the puddle of tea running over the table and onto the floor (down beside me under the table, possibly creating my own puddle.)
Over 7 and walking back to the kitchen for a fresh cup is possibly possible, but not a good idea at all as the kitchen may have decided on a spot of relocation.

Over 8? Well, the worst earthquake ever recorded reached 8.9 on the Richter Scale.

Here's a slightly more official list of strengths.
[www.geography-site.co.uk]

And here's our weekly top quake over the last 11 weeks.

WeekOfYear MaxOfForce
36 - - 7.1
37 - - 5.4
38 - - 4.6
39 - - 4.6
40 - - 4.4
41 - - 5.2
42 - - 5.1
43 - - 5.0
44 - - 4.8
45 - - 4.5
46 - - 4.6

Edited to re-format list.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2010 10:31AM by MistyCat.

This chap Richter was all well and good - but what the world really needed was the MC teacup scale. So much easier to understand. Thank you.

I'm off to find a NZ stain remover company to invest in.

Today's leftovers up to about 10pm.

All fairly shallow - another 20 buildings damaged in the central city.

32 of 32 quakes (4132 total):
3.1M, depth: 10km 26/12/2010 21:25
3M, depth: 35km 26/12/2010 19:14
3.2M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 19:03
3.5M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 18:43
3M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 17:26
3.2M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 16:29
2.2M, depth: 6km 26/12/2010 16:18
3M, depth: 7km 26/12/2010 15:20
3.1M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 14:25
3M, depth: 1km 26/12/2010 14:22
3.7M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 13:12
3M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 12:52
3.7M, depth: 2km 26/12/2010 12:34
2.9M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 12:14
3.5M, depth: 6km 26/12/2010 11:53
3.1M, depth: 6km 26/12/2010 11:26
3.2M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 11:22
2.9M, depth: 3km 26/12/2010 11:03
2.9M, depth: 0km 26/12/2010 10:57
2.9M, depth: 14km 26/12/2010 10:49
3.6M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 10:35
3.7M, depth: 0km 26/12/2010 10:32
4.9M, depth: 12km 26/12/2010 10:30
2.8M, depth: 6km 26/12/2010 09:51
2.9M, depth: 12km 26/12/2010 08:41
3.8M, depth: 4km 26/12/2010 08:03
3M, depth: 14km 26/12/2010 06:03
2.7M, depth: 3km 26/12/2010 05:34
2.8M, depth: 12km 26/12/2010 05:24
3.7M, depth: 6km 26/12/2010 02:32
3.8M, depth: 8km 26/12/2010 02:08
4.2M, depth: 5km 26/12/2010 02:07

Thanks for posting the recent activity. I re-read the tea scale and was reduced to giggles again. I feel much better now, thank you.

I remember the 'Meckering' earthquake of the late 1960's in Western Australia. I was on the farm at the time and I thought I was having a dizzy spell when the building began to twist and shake. When I got outside the cars were bouncing sideways across the ground and our two cats had run up trees and were hanging on in terror as the trees shook.

The pigs took it quite calmly - we had essentially free range pigyards - no pens - and were on sand so we were insulated a bit.

On the way home I saw fallen windmills and sheds and some buildings in Perth had fallen apart.

A lady friend of mine with beautiful long legs who lived on the eighth floor of a block of flats was in the bath at the time and she said that the water just got up out of the bath. So she grabbed a shower coat and ran down the stairs and stood outside the building. As she lived opposite the police station she was given a lot of assistance until one of the policemen realised her fiance was a sergeant in the force. She said all the fun went out of it then.

But two years later the roads east of Perth still showed buckling and there were new ridges across the wheat fields.

The sandy suburbs of Christchurch were quite badly affected by liquefaction.

MistyCat - hope you and rest of the NZ fforumites are safe and sound x

MistyCat hope that you are okay - thinking of you!

Keep safe, my kiwi friends!

---

Part time Quantum Elephant hollower

I second that.

I also join the people hoping you are OK.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2011 01:52PM by Marit.