New Zealand Gets Shaken, Not Stirred

Got up early today, wailed at the unfairness of the universe (because while it was a picture-perfect summer day today, rain's in our forecast for the entire holiday weekend), and got on Twitter whilst I was debating whether to call in dead.  My petty little concerns went right out the window.  New Zealand, y'see, suffered a 7.0 earthquake.

Happily, no deaths and surprisingly few injuries were reported.  Quite a bit of damage to structures, but it appears at this time that there's nothing major.  Regulations work, people (h/t Chris).  And to think the developers were whining about all that horrible regulatory stuff.  They may not give a shit about dead people, but they need to remember that dead people can't buy property.

(Interesting coinky-dink: today is the day Head Rush had a bit about earthquakes between Australia and New Zealand.  The quake they were discussing moved the two about a foot closer to each other.  This keeps up, flights between the two might get super-short in a few million years.)

Chris at Highly Allochthonous has a good piece up about the tectonics of the quake.  You can find a map showing who felt the quake at Dave's Landslide Blog - looks like most of the country got shaken.  Erik at Eruptions has some links for ye.  And I'm sure there's a ton of stuff I'm missing, but I've been talking to me mum all night, so you'll just have to let me know in comments what I should've seen.

Some extraordinary pics below the fold (h/t Chris and Erik).




Mini fault scarp:

O' course, that could just be from something hollow (sewer or suchlike) collapsing below, but it's pretty interesting anyway.  So is this one:

I'm pretty sure they didn't build the parking lot like that.

Here's a pretty dramatic crack in a road:

And another big ol' crack in the ground:

Pretty amazing stuff.  The earth's powerful, and we don't control it - it's best we don't ever forget that.

Best of luck as you ride out the aftershocks and dig out, my dear New Zealanders!