New Zealand Earthquake...

[Barra]

Much closer and shallower though. Gotta feel for everyone affected

[Q. T. Quazar]

hope you and yours are all safe and sound. best wishes.

[mahlemiut]

Current official death toll is at 65. Probably more to come.

[BeeJay]

It felt much worse than the 7.1 back in September last year!!!

80% of the city is without power, the cathedral spire in the centre of town fell down with multiple people in it, several buildings have collapsed including a 5 story office block that pancaked the floors onto itself making the floors only 0.5m to 1m tall instead of the more normal 3.5m.

The latest quake was centred only 5k deep and situated only 10k from the city centre, compared with the 7.1 quake which was 11k deep and 37k from the city centre.

Cheers,
BeeJay.

[BeeJay]

..... and in the brief time it took me to write that posting we had at least 3 more aftershocks of very noticeable size.... and I'm a pretty fast typist!!

Cheers,
BeeJay.

[Barra]

Hope you OK up there Beejay.

[Cicca]

Damn ... I actually missed the first hearhquake, in september.....where the hell do I live...?!?
Great to know you guys downunder are all ok, expecially BeeJay, and his family, despite the terrible experience....
Good luck...
Cicca

[BeeJay]

Starting to get sick of these larger aftershocks. I was riding my bike home yesterday, after the 5.7, and thought I'd hit an oil slick when the 6.3 struck. Managed to get my feet out of the bindings and onto the ground before I fell off completely. Once I was standing on the ground I realised it was an earthquake not an oil slick - the truck driver next to me thought I was going to end up under his truck, and so did I for a bit... either there or under the car on the other side of the cycle lane. I pedalled a bit slower for rest of the trip home...

Cheers,
BeeJay.

[el_fumador]

Starting to get sick of these larger aftershocks. I was riding my bike home yesterday, after the 5.7, and thought I'd hit an oil slick when the 6.3 struck. Managed to get my feet out of the bindings and onto the ground before I fell off completely. Once I was standing on the ground I realised it was an earthquake not an oil slick - the truck driver next to me thought I was going to end up under his truck, and so did I for a bit... either there or under the car on the other side of the cycle lane. I pedalled a bit slower for rest of the trip home...

Cheers,
BeeJay.

I heard in the news about another earthquake in Christchurch again. Fucking earthquakes...
I suppose you felt a big fright with that truck so close to you.
A few weeks ago, in Spain happened and earthquake 5.6 and 16 persons died. Lots of buildings were damaged too. This situation is very unusual in Spain, but sometimes happens.

[BeeJay]

Yup, we lost around another 75 buildings in our Central Business District. Not a lot of them left standing in there now other than the really modern ones. Thankfully only 1 death attributable to the earthquake this time around.

Kia Kaha Christchurch!!

Fide Condita Fructu Beata Spe Fortis

Cheers,
BeeJay.

[BeeJay]

Yay, just what Christchurch needed two days before Christmas!! Another series of quakes starting with a 5.8, which was in itself bad enough, and then a 6.0 around 90 minutes later which really put everyone on edge and closed all the main shopping malls on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Now I'm trying to find out if anyone is organizing a shovel brigade to help dig the horrible silt/mud that has come up in the liquefaction following these latest series of quakes so I can go and help out in the affected suburbs...

BeeJay.

[BeeJay]

I just realised / found out that our house is on land that has been given the worst rating of land that is still considered usable (Green/Blue or TC3) even though we suffered no substantial damage to our foundations etc. Apparently they gave that rating to all land that had suffered any liquefaction during any of the earthquakes. We only had that stuff during the first big one, but we're lumped in with all the houses that had it every time, other than those houses that have been zoned unusable (Red).

That's probably knocked several 10s of thousands off the value of our property, which we were planning to sell soonish so we can build a new house with more bedrooms. I guess that means we'll need a bigger mortgage on the new house.

BeeJay.