Large Quake Hits Canterbury

[Locut0s]

nice catch. typo... i was exhausted. my gf of 3 years and i broke up a few days ago and it's been affecting my sleep.

Wow sorry to hear about that. Hope you feel better soon.

 

[eits]

Wow sorry to hear about that. Hope you feel better soon.

me too...

thanks man.

 

[Locut0s]

me too...

thanks man.

Go play some games, go out with some friends to drink a few, watch some porn Try to get your mind off it if you can.

Not that I'm one to say, never having had a GF in the first place yet.

 

[eits]

Go play some games, go out with some friends to drink a few, watch some porn Try to get your mind off it if you can.

Not that I'm one to say, never having had a GF in the first place yet.

i'm trying to keep my mind busy... an idle mind is the devil's playground.

anyway, enough about my troubles... people in christchurch have it way worse. my prayers are with them.

 

[zinfamous]

Bear Grills was in NZ during the quake.

I wonder if he's gonna spin a show out of this.

:hmm:


(well, he was probably there filming, anyway)

 

[Locut0s]

Bear Grills was in NZ during the quake.

I wonder if he's gonna spin a show out of this.

:hmm:


(well, he was probably there filming, anyway)

Not to make fun of those who have suffered (I sincerely hope that no one here has lost a love one or suffered in any other way due to this), but to make fun of Bear Grills.

I can just see him leaping from rubble pile to rubble pile talking about the dangers of the urban earthquake zone. Cut to him finding a lizard amongst the rubble and him tearing its head off with his teeth.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Damn, looks like up to 100 people may have died in a single building collapse Death toll currently 75 confirmed, 300+ unaccounted for.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10708295

 

[BoomerD]

I'm very surprised at the amount of damages incurred. NZ is a relatively progressive nation that lives with earthquakes...I would have thought the building code to be more earthquake safe.

(yes, I know a lot of the buildings that collapsed were older buildings, perhaps exempt from the newer building codes...still, I am amazed by it all.

Mike, looking as the severity of some of the damage, I'm actually surprised that the death toll is as low as it is...but sadly, I suspect it will climb, perhaps dramatically, once they start getting into the rubble of some of the collapsed buildings. Hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[Locut0s]

I'm very surprised at the amount of damages incurred. NZ is a relatively progressive nation that lives with earthquakes...I would have thought the building code to be more earthquake safe.

(yes, I know a lot of the buildings that collapsed were older buildings, perhaps exempt from the newer building codes...still, I am amazed by it all.

Mike, looking as the severity of some of the damage, I'm actually surprised that the death toll is as low as it is...but sadly, I suspect it will climb, perhaps dramatically, once they start getting into the rubble of some of the collapsed buildings. Hopefully I'm wrong.

One thing is that this was a relatively shallow earthquake.

Also Christchurch isn't a city with lots of skyscrapers, or any really. From what I can see on Street view it looks like your typical small sized North American like city. No high rises, lots of one and 2 story concrete structures and lots of residential. I'm sure building codes are up to date but this type of building usually isn't all that earthquake hardened even in areas that experience lots of quakes. It's the large structures and infrastructure that get all the earthquake hardening attention. And like you mentioned there was also a lot of older structures. Couple this with the shallow nature of the earthquake and you have a bad combo.

 

[Mike Gayner]

NZ has extremely strict codes around earthquake proofing - unfortunately, Christchurch is a very old city, with buildings ranging across a number of generations prior to earthquake safe codes being implemented.

 

[BoomerD]

NZ has extremely strict codes around earthquake proofing - unfortunately, Christchurch is a very old city, with buildings ranging across a number of generations prior to earthquake safe codes being implemented.

That's sort of what I expected. I was fairly certain that NZ had strict seismic building requirements. But, as is common, they exempted the older buildings from earthquake safety laws. It happens here as well. Brick buildings, or brick-faced buildings are death traps in earthquake zones.

 

[Nox51]

What he said is very valid. A lot of the older brick buildings were affected by the looks of it.

Also It was a much shallower earthquake and closer to the city than last time. Further I don't think the fact that the area got hit in the previous one helped at all. I really don't know how far along they were with repairs/strengthening buildings after it.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Also It was a much shallower earthquake and closer to the city than last time. Further I don't think the fact that the area got hit in the previous one helped at all. I really don't know how far along they were with repairs/strengthening buildings after it.

Barely started unfortunately. The money's there, but there's a big labour shortage (good if you're in the building trade), but in less than 6 months hardly any work has been completed. I have a client who has been in Christchurch full time (1,000km away from home) assessing damage for insurance companies, and they still had a huge pile of work to do for the first quake.

 

[Nox51]

That's what i heard as well, tho I couldn't really say one way or another since I don't live there. A family friend is doing the same thing as he's an architect by trade and I heard that dad's company shuffled personnel around to Christchurch to do the same.

 

[MotionMan]

My in-laws are on a cruise. We just spoke with them last night. Apparently they were there the day before the quake and one of the buildings they were in or toured through collapsed in the quake, killing people inside.

Wow, were my in-laws lucky.

Best wishes from one quake-country to another.

MotionMan

 

[Locut0s]

Barely started unfortunately. The money's there, but there's a big labour shortage (good if you're in the building trade), but in less than 6 months hardly any work has been completed. I have a client who has been in Christchurch full time (1,000km away from home) assessing damage for insurance companies, and they still had a huge pile of work to do for the first quake.

Wow that's too bad. So aside from the human toll it sounds like the city will be suffering from this for a long time to come. Hopefully they put out the call both nationally and internationally for more labor.

 

[palladium]

Resident in Christchurch here. I'm OK, but many others are not. Hoping that there wouldn't be anymore serious aftershocks.

 

[PreferLinux]

Resident in Christchurch here. I'm OK, but many others are not. Hoping that there wouldn't be anymore serious aftershocks.

If it was me, I'd be hoping there isn't going to be any volcanic activity from Lyttleton, just based on the location of the vast majority of the latest lot of quakes/aftershocks.

 

[nanette1985]

Resident in Christchurch here. I'm OK, but many others are not. Hoping that there wouldn't be anymore serious aftershocks.

Glad to hear you're OK - where were you when it hit?

So sad about the ones who didn't make it. Condolences.

 

[Locut0s]

Glad to hear you're OK - where were you when it hit?

So sad about the ones who didn't make it. Condolences.

Yeah it looks like they are beginning to give up searching for survivors now and are moving to "recovery" mode.

 

[eits]

Damn, looks like up to 100 people may have died in a single building collapse Death toll currently 75 confirmed, 300+ unaccounted for.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10708295

 

[BoomerD]

Yeah it looks like they are beginning to give up searching for survivors now and are moving to "recovery" mode.

From some of the stories I read and videos I watched, a couple of the collapsed buildings were deemed "unsurvivable" earlier today. I also read that they were concentrating on finding survivors and ignoring places that were known to have only dead bodies.
That's gotta be hard on all concerned.

I'll be surprised if they don't find a few more survivors over the next 24 or so hours...after that.....it's unlikely.

 

[PreferLinux]

From some of the stories I read and videos I watched, a couple of the collapsed buildings were deemed "unsurvivable" earlier today. I also read that they were concentrating on finding survivors and ignoring places that were known to have only dead bodies.
That's gotta be hard on all concerned.

I'll be surprised if they don't find a few more survivors over the next 24 or so hours...after that.....it's unlikely.

Well, the point of what they are doing is trying to save as many lives as possible, so of course they will do that.

 

[RobDickinson]

<- another Chur local. I was luckily at work by the airport when it hit, work got trashed but stayed intact.

House got trashed and is structualy ok, its 2kms from the epicenter on the hills, many other houses are destroyed.

As to Chch city center, there are a lot of old unreenforced masonry buildings which failed badly.

The strengthened old buildinds fared better but still fell over, with these when they fail they just collaps.

This exceeded the building regs for any code, all the modern buildingd bar 2 came off OK and whilst some failed they failed gradualy.

Theres an inquest planned to see why the 2 new buildings collapsed, always something to learn. 35-40&#37; of CBD buildings will be demo'd in the next 6 months.

One guy was on the 5th floor of one of those failed buildings (guinness one) and punched his way through a wall then walked out onto street level...

My house took about 1.8g of acceleration....

 

[eits]

http://www.dump.com/2011/02/28/chri...-how-the-sand-liquefies-with-vibration-video/