Read it in the papers today ,,, hope none of our members are affected ,,,
Also a small-plane crash....9 people going sky diving lost their lives
The shake was confined largely to the middle of the South Island. It was an early morning bump that registered 7.4 on the Richter scale. Ominously, according to the experts, it was not the big one expected by the seismologists and it opened up an entirely new fault line previously unknown.
It also wrecked a large section of the central business district in Christchurch and caused two billion dollars worth of damage to infrastructure such as roads, bridges, rail lines and the airport.
So now the boys in the white coats are waiting for the next shoe to drop. The big one they refer to occurs on a 300 year cycle. The last time it hit this part of the island was 350 years ago. Not for nothing is New Zealand or Godzone as it is called here – possibly due to the fact that the Almighty keeps reaching down and shaking it awake - known as the Shaky Isles. We have an earth tremor every three minutes or so. Most go unnoticed except for a blip on the seismographs.
Fortunately this one occurred in the wee small hours when most honest kiwis were safely tucked up in bed in their Earthquake Code compliant houses so there were few injuries and only one fatality from a heart attack.
The damage will be covered by the country's Earthquake Fund which currently holds 15 billion dollars in investments plus a required six billion dollars permanently in cash to give emergency funding. The NZ Civil Defence Authority, a nationwide organization that can call on thousands of trained volunteers and army teams as needed, has sprung into action.
The Earthquake Fund and its cash barrel is legally ring-fenced to ensure no greedy politico or nutcase government can get its hands on it for anything other than its intended purpose. So for that reason New Zealand won't be going cap in hand to the outside world for aid. Though if anyone feels like sending a crate or two of good Cape sunshine appropriately bottled I can guarantee it will be appreciated
Chardonnay or Shiraz Bob ?? Good to hear Govt got all the ducks in a row .......
Hello to you Bob!.... hope you are well and out of the area..... I did experienced an earthquake in Melbourne whilst we lived there over twenty years ago, it was not a big quake, in fact what I remember of it was like a big truck passing the house. The shaking lasted only a few seconds, the New Zealand lady that was interviewed said that the shaking went on for a good minute,..... would have been very scary. I received a bottle of Glenlivet from my son who just returned from overseas..............I will drink to your health Bob! ..................................................(http://www.getsmileyface.com/sm/drink/trink21.gif)
Hi Frank,
The big shake happened roughly in the middle of the South Island. Fortunately we live about 1,000km to the north, in fact in an area known as the far north of the North Island, almost in the sub-tropics.
The area is relatively earthquake free, touch wood. Ironically, my only experience of a full blown earthquake was in the Seventies in Cape Town during the big Western Cape shake. I was at a party on Clifton Beach at the time and remember how we all rushed to take shelter against a retaining wall as the boulders came rumbling down the hillside.
That shake did great damage to several Western Cape towns. Tulbagh and Montague suffered most, with many of Tulbagh's historic buildings requiring a rebuild over the next few years.
It also left the Koeberg atomic power station planners with egg on their faces as they had said repeatedly that the site had been chosen as earthquake free and produced cores from rock drills to "prove" there had been no discernible earth movement for five thousand years.
Hello to you Bob!.. Yes these experts are rather good at getting things wrong,........ but there again they are experts..... Am quite amazed Bob at the fact that our planet revolves every twenty four hours and 365 days later we are back to were we started from... A bit like the African Wildebeests, only we don't encounter the perils that the Wildebeests do, or do we!... tsunami earthquakes volcanic eruptions and god forgive meteor strikes (I have seen most of the movies) and you always have an expert there (that usually gets swallowed up, drowned, or engulfed in flames) natural disasters will be with us period. Its how we deal with the after effects.
At the moment down south in Victoria they are having water problems, too much it seems its twenty years since they had that much water and the weather forecast for them is not good. I bet there's an expert somewhere there saying I told you so.
...and even "more" experts were reported to be saying in yesterday's media, that the ice caps are no longer melting as fast as they had originally stated and are only melting at half the speed they thought they were...
remember in the sixty's they said that the next ice age was about to happen, and that half of Europe would be covered...........................(http://serve.mysmiley.net/scared/scared0006.gif)