• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

And the Earth shook

P

padburgess

Charter Member
Just thought I'd share some stats with ya all. I live on the Canterbury plains South Island of NZ. Actually only 7km from the epicenter of the 7.1 magnitude quake that hit at 4:35am 6th Sept. To say it was a wild ride is an understatement. However we (as in Christchurch NZ) got away with no deaths and whilst there is major damage to many older buildings in the city and to some of the suburbs, generally we did well. Good building codes and luckily it struck at a time when the city was not full of people. An hour earlier and it would have been a whole lot worse as that area of the city worst hit is where most of the night life takes place.
However, the stats. We have now had, beside the 1 magnitude 7.1, 10 magnitude 5 - 6, 97 magnitude 4 -5, 385 magnitude 3 - 4 and numerous smaller after shocks totaling more than 700 over the last two weeks. I now have a greater appreciation for the devastating effect that those large quakes we read about hitting poorer countries have and the ongoing effect of the after shocks. I live in a modern well prepared country, there is probably no better prepared place on earth, and the effect on myself and my family, friends and work colleagues is profound. So next time you read about a magnitude 7 or 8 quake hitting a remote part of China, Afghanistan, Haiti or Iran, spare some thought for the poor terrified people living with what has just happened to them. And if possible give what aid you can.
 
Thanks for this first person story. I have never been in an earthquake. I can only imagine what it must feel like.

I agree with your last sentence.
 
As a small child I was raised in Rabaul PNG. Surrounded by volcano's earth quakes and Sulphur gasses were a regular occurance and some were very scary, I guess everybody was earthquake aware there. Don't know how the buildings managed to stay upright.
 
Welcome to the Ring of Fire. The boundries of the Pacific Ocean. Along this Ring, is California, Chile, Japan, NZ, Alaska....
Been thru every SoCal quake since the '70's
 
Correction

Sorry folks, got my dates screwed up. The main quake was the 4th not the 6th. Just thought you might get a different perspective from this link. http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/.
It gives a whole new perspective to the event that is solely due to the wonders of modern technology. When sped up it looks just like the rippling shock waves from a B52 strike. Another mind blowing stat. In the first day we had 96 after shocks.
Cheers everyone. And thanks Piglet, she's a great place to live eh, "that burning ring of fire"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top