FYI: As you can clearly see in the photos above, New Zealand sits right on top of the Pacific Tectonic plate that pushes up against the Australian Tectonic plate and the Ring of Fire.
The New Zealand Herald
written by Rebecca Quilliam
Monday July 22, 2013
Wellington's mayor is hopeful it will be business as normal tomorrow despite 35 buildings in the CBD found to have been externally damaged by yesterday's severe earthquake.
Engineers have spent the day assessing almost 2500 buildings in central Wellington following the magnitude-6.5 quake which struck in the Cook Strait just after 5pm yesterday.
The quake, which has been followed by hundreds of aftershocks, caused widespread damage.
Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said most of it was minor and no structural damage had been discovered.
About 12 buildings on a section of Featherston Street were cordoned off due to concerns about falling masonry and glass.
Businesses and organisations, many of which were closed today, could reopen tomorrow and workers, who were told today to stay away, could return to the city, Ms Wade-Brown said.
But there should be some "sympathy" for people who were not feeling ready to come back into the city.
Glass and masonry were still falling from about a dozen buildings and those areas had been cordoned off, but most roads had reopened.
Three major car parking buildings in the central city were closed while they were inspected for possible structural damage. That meant a large number of motorists who regularly used these buildings should reconsider how they got to work.
Three of the four city council buildings had been cleared for use.
"The Civic Administration building, the library and the Town Hall, they're structurally fine, they're just doing some pressure testing on the sprinklers," Ms Wade-Brown said.
VOLUNTEERS
Following Christchurch's lead, some of Wellington's students had volunteered to clean up the mess.
"There's about 300-plus members on its Facebook page entitled 'Student Volunteer Army Wellington'," Ms Wade-Brown said.
TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS
Victoria University of Wellington said it would make a decision tonight on whether the university, or parts of it, would open tomorrow.
Massey University's Wellington campus also closed as a precautionary measure, to allow time to assess campus buildings. It was expected to decide this afternoon whether access to the campus tomorrow would be allowed.
Whitireia Polytechnic said all its Wellington City campuses would be closed until they were inspected for damage.
PORT
Greater Wellington Regional Council chairwoman Fran Wilde said the city's port was close to being operational again.
The shake caused about five metres of reclaimed land had subsided into the sea at Thorndon Container Terminal, taking with it a large container and a large buoy.
The container had been secured but not yet removed from the sea.
"The port will be working including, I understand, the ferry services," she said.
There were also clearances being done on port buildings, which had suffered water damage.
RAIL
Rail services were back up and running to a half-hour schedule, Ms Wilde said.
"Hopefully, subject to no more big shakes, will back on its ordinary timetable tomorrow."
GOVT SUPPORT
Prime Minister John Key assured quake-hit people the Government would do its "very best" to ensure they get the support they needed.
Mr Key was still to get an update on any fiscal impact of yesterday's earthquake but said, in principle, New Zealand could afford to pay for the damage caused by another earthquake.
"There's nothing at the moment that's been advised to me that would indicate there's substantial fiscal risk to the Crown, we know that the Earthquake Commission fund really has nothing in it from the last time I looked at it," he said.
AFTERSHOCKS
GNS Science seismologist Ken Gledhill said yesterday's quake was a "one-in-several-decade event" but only a 10th of the size of the February 2011 Canterbury quake.
Dr Gledhill said the many aftershocks still rocking the bottom of the North Island and top of the South were normal.
"This is not unusual behaviour for the Cook Strait region. It's following the pattern we would expect."
Dr Gledhill downgraded the chance of the area suffering a magnitude-6 quake within the next week to 19 per cent, down from 30 per cent this morning.
There was a 39 per cent chance the region would have a large quake in the next year, he said.
The three big earthquakes that have struck the region since Friday were all centred between 10km and 20km below the sea floor in the Cook Strait, he said.
Dr Gledhill said there had been "quite a lot" of work done on the chances of a tsunami from a quake centred in the Cook Strait and the earthquakes would have to get a lot bigger for that to happen.
INJURIES
Medical emergency services had very few callouts following the quake, but emergency services are bracing in case another large one hits.
There have been four reports of people needing medical care following the 6.5 tremor, but no serious injuries were suffered.
Wellington Free Ambulance (WFA) spokesman Daniel Paul said one person was injured when a television fell on them, another was shaken out of bed and a couple more suffered anxiety chest pains.
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