You NZ guys OK???

[crazy steve]

Just saw on MSNBC that you had a 'shaker' in Christchurch NZ... hope everybody's OK...

[b.walker5]

Yep, okay here. Christchurch is around 350 miles north of me, so we only got a "roll" but I have family and friends there. Have been texting them and theyre okay. I think Subike is up that way, in Greta Valley, so he may have been affected. Hope he's okay but so far there's no reports of fatalities, and only a couple of serious injuries. There's a fair amount of building and road damage, with large parts of Christchurch affected so it's early days yet, and many aftershocks to go. Quake was 7.4 according to the news and at least one aftershock has been 7.1.

Thanks for asking.

[Toolmaker Tim]

Earthquake

Glad to hear you are OK. A 7.4 AND 7.1, WOW. I cannot even imagine what that would be like. We have had a couple 3.5 -4.0 around here, but I doubt you would even notice something that small. Glad to hear all of yours are also OK.

[b.walker5]

Thanks Tim.

Just the joys of living of living in a volcanic country sitting right on top of the Pacific Fault Line. We had a 7.8 about a year ago 100 miles west of me but it was in a remote mountainous area so very little damage was caused. We get around 14,000 quakes a year but only about 150 of them are ever felt. Fortunately we're a sparsely populated country so urban damage is rare, but this one has damaged quite a lot of the city.

[phantymwulf]

NZ Shaker

Glad to here you guys are ok..I Was in the 6.9 Hayward , CA back IN
84'...Longest 32 sec. in my life.....I have more friends in NZ..gotta email them also to see how they are........

Wulf

[Wildkat]

Glad to hear you're well, Brian...
Hoping everyone else is as well

Sending positive thoughts and prayers that way

[subike]

Me and my bikes are OK, I recently moved back into Christchurch, its my home town.
I only got power back on in the complex I live in last night, and telephone lines were reconnected this afternoon, otherwise I would have made contact before now.
Its been a wicked ride the past 36 hrs, with over 30 aftershocks peppering the day with forces up to 5 on the scale. But we are a hardy lot down here, fourtunaltly the major quake was at 4.35 in the morning and as 80% of the damaged buildings were in the CBD of CHCH, very few people were at risk. Only two injuries, no deaths but over 500 damaged buildings.
The majority of our heritage buildings took major hits, The local Govt has estimated it will be at least a year till everything get back to a close as we can get to normal after such an event.
Our town is in shut down this week, all public buildings , schools closed, and the public transport system not expected to resume untill Wed.
But the good news is, that this will mean there will be little unemployment in CHH for a few months, there is heaps of rebuilding and new bulding to be done over the entire city,
The normal sewerage and water breakages to repair, split , cracked and subsided roads to rebuild, lots and lots of bricks to pick up and clean.
So lots of labours needed.
Of the buildings that have been damaged, some were important heratige buildings, these are going to be assessed so that where possibile they will be carefully rebuilt back to their old glory. These being an inportant part of our cities attraction.
On the down side, many of my riding friends bikes took damage. Mainly just falling on thier sides, but some were flattened by collapsing garages. One dear friend has lost 4 bikes, all her roof tiles and garden wallsdecided to become friends with flat earth. She owned a 100 yr old house that literally fell to bits in seconds. Fortunatly she was at work at the time , nobody was home. But there is one very flat Ducati in her back yard.
My XS's?.... Tough old girls they are , vibrated across the floor of the garage leaving two 6 " scratches on the concreter floor, but other than a bit of plaster dust..... sweet as. I acually went for a ride yesterday around town to survey the damage, ....wow is all I can say.
Thanks for your concerns guys,


I hope that this link will work and give you a small idea of the damage.

http://www.crashbang.co.nz/quake040910/index.html

[b.walker5]

Hi Sub, great to hear your okay. My big brother lives over in Shirley, not far from the Palms, and his house was untouched but his neighbour on one side had his garage roof collapse (on his VE Commodore), and the one on the other side had all the glass in his conservatory fall out and shatter. Big bro works for Telstra as senior technician so he's been on the go since 5.30am Saturday restoring cell phone towers and broken fibre optic cables. Think he'll be busy for a while. Got a friend out in Oxford that had a tree fall through his lounge window, and his Speedmaster fell over but otherwise he got off pretty light cosidering he's only only about 15k's from the epicentre. Great photolink, much better than the Stuff website.

[Wildkat]

Good to hear from you subike!

and glad that things weren't any worse...

Continued prayers and positive thoughts your way... not much else we can do this far away... but if there is something... please let us know.

[DGXSER]

Pictures show a wild ride for sure!! Some of it must just be the way the fault line runs, but some of it also seems to show where some buildings were just not as structurally sound as others. I do like the open air concept it created for some of those second floor suites!

[Guy_b_g]

Sorry to hear of all the damage, but I'm glad everyone seems ok.

Love the pic of the chicane in the railroad track...that outta keep those speeding engineers on their toes...

[STEPPENWOLF]

From a buddy in Outram...

[b.walker5]

For anyone interested..

Here's a timeline by some university proffessor of the main quake and the many hundreds of aftershocks still rattling the area.

http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

[Ken Talbot]

Very interesting display. Looks like Christchurch is about to fall off the face of the earth!

[subike]

You wana be here, its been 7 days of tremmors, there have been over 200 aftershocks since the big one og 7.4 last saturday morning. they have been ranging from 5.1's all the way down the scale.
Its not all that comfey either, as sleep is interupted at night, trucks passing by send the head into"is this anotherone" mode.... sheesh!
And the worst thing of all is that The Southern Blues Bar, my watering hole for the past 25 years is now just a pile of rubble!
So now I have to find a new bar, bugger!