- EARTHQUEAKE IN NEW ZEALAND: STORY OF A WITNESS - In September 2010 in Christchurch, the second largest town in New Zealand, strong earthquake happened (with a magnitude a bit more than 7). Then after several months one more earthquake destroyed almost to the root a calm city of the South Island. We were told about this case by Elena that has been living there for 5 years and, by a twist of fate is a constructing engineer and, of course, knows the worth of destructions and reconstruction. __________________ Earthquakes in New Zealand do not surprise at all, as this is one the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. This country is included into the zone of the Ring of Fire that is around the whole Pacific Ocean; it includes also Japan, New Guinea, western beach of the USA, Chile and etc. Situation in New Zealand is also complicated by the fact that big crust fracture is going through the whole country between Oceanic and Australian plates. So, because of this fracture, one island of New Zealand is located in one plate, and another island is on another plate. In the capital city (Wellington) these two plates cross each other: the one goes up, another goes down, so one plate “runs into” another. That means, in the view of geology, this place is unfavorable. Christchurch was considered to be not really earthquake-prone region, as it is located quite far from the fracture. But the point is that the influence of this fracture is very significant and whole New Zealand is in cracks. Later it emerged that one more crack does exist. In fact, it is difficult to know about all cracks; normally it becomes known when earthquake happens. Most of them are in “sleeping condition”, they collect energy, and then once - bounce. When I arrived to New Zealand in 2009, I didn’t know about all details of seismic hazard. In first month I was told: “we expect huge earthquake”. I surprised: “How is that possible for people to lead such a calm life, if they are informed about earthquake?! But, as it turned out, it is possible, even for me. First earthquake happened in 4th of September 2010 at 4.30 AM. When it started, I was sleeping and, when I woke up, I immediately understood what had happened. There were no any questions. It was very scary. That time we used to live in a one-floor house, my bed was next to the exit – so, when it started, my legs leaded me outdoors immediately. Only when I ran out, my mind returned to me and thoughts started running in my mind: “God, what am I doing… my neighbor remained there, I have to save her! Quite often before the shake you can hear noise caused by earth movement. Many people, especially farm-leavers, woke up that day to this sound. But I didn’t hear the noise, and this case was a surprise to me. To be honest, that was scary. This September earthquake was evaluated in 7.3 balls. There were no victims, there were only some destructions in hills where houses are located, and people had slight bruises and grazes. We were lucky that in happened at 4.30 AM, nobody was in the centre, where the most of old and dangerous (in terms of breaking) buildings are located. Also, epicenter is far enough from the city, in the area of Darfold, about 40 km far from us. So, we got away with a black eye. Many people immediately left the country. We didn’t sleep next night. I laid up next to the door in a sleeping bag. Although I saw that nothing scary might have happened, but that time I felt real fear. That’s amazing, how strong is this occurrence. Amazing. You just get used to the fact that the land is firm and heavy. Here it is shaking with enormous power, it is getting alive, getting wild…it seems to me that it is absolutely impossible to understand through mind. As the city almost didn’t suffer after first earthquake, people used to say: “That means, our city has a good karma”. That time we didn’t know what was expecting us. READ MORE: gayanat.blogspot.ru/2014/01/earthqueake-in-new-zealand-history-of.html
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 05:26:30 +0000
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