christchurch

• Geographical context


  - Experiences 20000 earthquake annually but only 200 can be felt

  - Very strict building regulations due to its geographical location

  - After the september earthquake, scientist cannot identify where the fault line were and the area was under a lot of stress

  - Regular earthquake drills are done to prepare

  - Many buildings are 1 story tall and has a low population density

  - New Zealand is earthquake prone as it on the pacific ring of fire
• Causes

  - Australian plate and Pacific plate pushed against each other along a curving boundary.

  - Southern part of the plate is sub ducted below the pacific plate

  - Northern part of the plate Pacific plate is subducted under the Australian plate

  - Most part of the southern island the plates are being pushed past each other ( conservative ) along the alpine fault

  - Alpine fault runs along the southern islands
• February 2011


  - Magnitude of 6.3

  - Focus 5km

  - Epicentre 10km southwest of christchurch

  - Time 12.51pm

  - Christchurch was virtually on top of the rupture point and saw that the rocks was still splitting
• September 2010


  - Magnatude 7.1

  - Focus 10km

  - Epicentre 40 west of christchurch

  - time 4.35am

  - No one died

  - $2 billion repairers

  - Caused major damage to the city infrastructure and CBD
• Impacts

  - City centre of christchurch was destroyed. 1000 buildings collapsed or demolished as they were to dangerous

  - 10000 homes in the suburbs had to be demolished

  - Tasmania glacier was 200km from the epicentre and the ice was dislodged and fell into Lake Tasman causing a tsunami of 3m high

  - Business was taken out of action for a long time as the city was cornered off

  - 2013 New zealand government estimated it would cost $40 billion to repair and rebuild

  - Wide spread liquidfaction and some areas got flooded. Some areas can no longer be built on after the earthquake

  - 185 people died. 115 people was in the Canterbury TV building which collapsed and set on fire
• Response

  - Insurance companies paid out $ 898 million in building claims

  - Earthquake commission assed all the buildings ensure it was safe

  - Canterbury art gallery was converted to an emergency response centre as it was earthquake proof

  - search and rescue deployed hours after

  - Emergency government meeting held at 3pm only 3 hours after the earthquake occurred. very prompt

  - $6-7 million international aid deployed

  - 300 Australian Police was flown immediately

  - New zealand's economy will take around 50 years to recover from this.