Hi Arirish, All's well with me thanks. I've just been really busy. Yesterday I butchered a calf on my own which took quite a while. My farm just keeps me occupied and it's school holidays here too so my children also keep me busy. I have been keeping an eye on this site but haven't had enough time to join in.
There have been hundreds of earthquakes here in the last couple of days. We haven't felt any since we are further south, but we have had our share since we had a 7.1 in Sept 2010 and then a 6.3 in Feb 2011 that killed about 180 people. Since then, in my area, we've had over 12,000 quakes, though most you don't feel.
The earthquakes at the top of the South Island are centered in the sea between the two islands, very close to Wellington. A recent survey of buildings in Wellington showed that about 7000 with public access wouldn't stand up to a large quake. As we all know, earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do.
The whole of NZ is waiting for the great Alpine Fault to rupture, and it ends at the top of the South Island. It ruptures every 300 years and last went 297 years ago. We've been told to expect a minimum of an 8.2 with a lateral movement of about 8m and a vertical of about 4m at the fault line. The shaking would last minutes not seconds.
On the MM scale, if shaking at the fault line is severe and measures a 10, I live in an 8 zone, so we're expecting severe disruption.
I do check the quake drums every day to keep an eye open for patterns. Unfortunately are no written records of the last quake in 1717 since the first European settlers only came to the south island in the 1800's, so no one knows if there were any foreshocks, or if the giant quake just came out of the blue.
Loads of studies have been done to estimate the damage to infrastucture but it's all guess work. The poor people of Seddon (the town nearest this latest swarm of quakes) have had 30 noticeable quakes since 1am this morning (it's 9am as I write this). They won't have slept much at all. When we were having our swarm, we could hear them coming at night, and when they hit, the large pane of glass in our bedroom window would flex and I lie next to that. It's a freakish sound.
Our whole house would creak as the quake passed under it. The movement is quite nice though. I personally like it, especially when outside although one quake did tip me into a raised vegetable bed and on another I was standing next to a very large open beehive that I was tending. I had to hold it upright which was a scary moment as I didn't know how large the quake would be and the last thing I want is 90,000 angry bees on me.
Anyhow, watch this space. When you hear that the Alpine Fault has ruptured, I suspect you won't hear from me for quite some time as I don't suppose any telephone lines will be left undamaged.
------------- Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
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