I thought this may interest both of you- this morning Christchurch City in the South Island of New Zealand was shaken by an earthquake magnatude 7.1. http://nz.news.yahoo.com/full-coverage/ ... istchurch/

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/qua ... uakes.html

We are all very worried about the residents down there- but it seems as though people are doing ok.

Buildings were torn apart- the ground liquified and massive amounts of damage occured. A state of emergency was declared by civil defence and the city is closed off till monday at least. It was a miracle no-body was killed. The funny thing is, at the epicentre there is no fault in the area, although it has been known for a very long time that there has been a high amount of tension in the tectonic plates between the pacific and the australian plate in the area.

Whats worrying me is that in my part of the world, there are all sorts of ground activity regarding earthquakes particularly where there are no fault lines present? the recent quakes in the pacific islands are a perfect example...

whats going on lately with this wierd spate of ground activity do you reckon?

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Hi Blertles: I'm not ZZDoc or Xhefri, but this is getting big coverage on the news over my way and I immediately thought about you. Glad to hear you're OK. Best wishes from my part of the world to everyone in yours.

Cheers man - C

Beat me to it Blerties, was watching some of the news coverage, some areas badly torn up, lots of undulating movement, they say it was luck it happened when it did and not during the day otherwise there would have been fatalities for sure, did you feel anything up where you are?

Thanks guys- yeah you dont really know how much you love your country until a disaster like this happens. Christchurch is a very populated area of the South Island with some 390,000 people living there.

Basically I guess the shock of it has settled and now the greif has kicked in. The Police have set curfews in the CBD and anyone caught outside the curfew hours will be arrested.

People have lost homes, possesions,.. many have been forced to take refuge at schools and town halls. It is very sad- but people down there are a strong bunch and the community spirit has been tremendous

USA offered aid by sending some of their navy ships here in order to help with engineers, medics and the like- of course being the stubborn kiwis we are we politely declined as we have the situation under control. Its a nice gesture though, its nice to see help being offered

Now here's a coincedence.. that night I did not get much sleep at all for some strange reason. Strange- my watch mysteriously stopped that morning. I had the battery replaced 3 months ago and it just stopped in the early hours of that morning. It is a Certina watch I bought for 600SF while in Lucerne, Switzerland, so it aint a clunker- coincedence or spooky??

I took it in to the jeweller just down from where I work who send thier stuff to a very well known watch-maker so it will be interesting to hear what went wrong with it.. will keep you posted

I did not feel anything worth mentioning other than the fact I remember thinking a truck drove past as I felt a very small vibration as you would if a train or large vehicle passed by. I dissmissed it as that, though I could be wrong. I was very tired and annoyed due to lack of sleep so it could have been anything really.

I must say I really hope all is ok with everybody down there. The Prime Minister commended the spirit of the community and said that every cloud has a silver lining, in the sense that over the next 18months Christchurch is set to get massive economic stimulis with lots of construction taking place in infrastructure, houses, schools etc... I guess soon there will be a shortage of labour. Authorities expect approx 100,000 buildings are either in condition to be condemned and demolished or badly damaged.

My Nana lived through the Napier earthquake and that was the largest one in NZ history I think, where it pretty much leveled the whole city. The cool thing is that it had been rebuilt with an art-deco theme and the city is just an amazing place to be- So I hope a similar thing happens in Christchurch. We all know the people deserve to have a great city rebuilt again.

Last note and I was hoping ZZdoc could comment as he is interested in volcanic fields, I was wondering if earthquakes too as Wellington, actually is in the same predicament as Christchurch was before the quake happened. The only difference is that Wellington actually sits over a fault where the tension is ver high between the tectonic plates- much like san andreas fault I think. They say when "the big one" occurs there, it will be more unforgiving than the 7.1 Christchurch quake.

Auckland is another one- being the whole area is made from Volcanic activity with over 60 volcanoes making its landscape, it is little wonder why nothing significant has happened up here. The last I do believe was Rangitoto (Rangitoto is Maori for 'Bloody Sky', with the name coming from the full phrase Nga Rangi-i-totongia-a Tama-te-kapua ('The days of the bleeding of Tama-te-kapua') Island which was formed 700 years ago:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland_volcanic_field
I just find the recent tremors and quakes of recent strange. Like the recent Tonga and Fiji earthquakes- there are no fault lines present and I wonder (and worry) when we will be hit as New Zealand is a hotspot for seizmic activity of all kinds...

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Mojo comin NZ's way. Glad your OK.... Mike

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

Huge amount of activity down there at present Blerties, just found this 4.8 mag in the Kermadic islands other reports say 5.8, reckon a big shift like the one in the Windy city triggers more.
Yeah bit spooky your watch stopping like that
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/ ... hp#details
http://theworldtopics.com/kermadec-islands/

Wow our countries have some thing in common: Earthquakes and volcanos. I was glad to read this morning that this big earthquake didn't clame any lives.

Stay save mate.

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Deyr fé
Deyja frændr
Deyr sjálfr ið sama
En orðstír
Deyr aldregi
Hveim er sér góðan getr

Hey Blertes

Really good news that no one was killed mate, really good.

My best guess would be the Pacific ring of fire





Lots more Here

As you can see though mate, you're right on the fault line.

Hey them cops set a curfew? Isn't that a bit like moving the goalpost for the people that just lost their homes? (Just kiddin).

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No no and no

Blertes,Glad to hear that you are safe and that non of your countrymen died in the quake.It seems that in the past few years the Ring of Fire surrounding the Pacific rim is getting vey unstable and flexing its muscles more frequently with all this activity the North and South American areas on the rim may not be in the clear yet as when one area flexes there's also stress put on the remaining plates.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Hahaha No, to be honest- except for apartment dwellers there arent a lot of people who would live in the city.. mainly in the burbs.

BUT- speaking about goal posts, Cantubury is a breeding ground for many a great rugby players who have served in the All Blacks. People down there are as tough as old boots.. it shows right now with the amount of spirit people have.

I'd still be concerned for the Rugby World Cup, an earthquake wont deter us from claiming it as our own next year in 2011

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Something to celebrate Blerties 4 in a row
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/eric ... e-referee/

Blertles, glad you are OK, the only science that I have heard is that Earth is going through a shift in electro magnetic fields that it goes through every 100K years or so.

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

Most of the earthquakes that happened from Haiti and other countries today were mostly have high magnitudes. Does anybody noticed that? I hope that everyone must be prepared because we'll never know when and where will it strike again..

I think that is because they don't bother reporting the smaller ones, their just not interesting enough to the rest of the world.
It's a sad fact that it takes disaster and misery to make international headlines.

For instance nobody remembers, or didn't hear of the Dudley earthquake of 22/9/2002. It hit 4.7 on the richter scale and was felt as far as 200 miles from it's center. In a country that is not really known for earthquakes.

Hey thank God the big bad ones are few and far between the world over.

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No no and no

Ok here we go again, only not Christchurch with the earthquakes throughout the day and all hours of the morning, but now there has been an earthquake recorded in Wellington which sits directly on the fault line.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-storie ... -recorded/

I am seriously worried about my country now. One earthquake nearly flattened a major city- now our capital is getting them. What is going on- I really dont think its safe to be here anymore

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