Dutchsinse reported this on 11/13/2016 -- Major unrest taking place -- M7.8 earthquake + tsunami strikes New Zealand.
I recommend that you follow dutchsinse on youtube for regular earthquake, volcano eruption updates. I have to share this comment below that was made in connection to the video dutchsinse posted above.
Maxine Raynor wrote: I am in the North Island of NZ and watched your forecast 2 hrs before the quake hit. Our tsunami sirens went off just after 2am, we had the car packed and ready to go because of you forecast and we evacuated to higher ground. Please don't ever think your message does not get through. I have shared your youtube channel with family and friends in Christchurch and around NZ. You save lives and we are very grateful for your forecasting, you are doing a great job ! We are safe and sound back home and the car is ready to go again!! Much Love from NZ.
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The Weather Channel
written by Pam Wright
Tuesday November 15, 2016
As aftershocks continue to rattle New Zealand, flooding and up to 100,000 landslides are hampering rescue efforts following the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck near Christchurch on Monday.
According to GeoNet, New Zealand's official source of geological hazard information, there have been somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 landslides since the quake, with many roads closed indefinitely, CNN reports.
The coastal town of Kaikoura has been completely cut off from the rest of the country by landslides, prompting a mass evacuation that began Tuesday.
According to the Associated Press, New Zealand sent military helicopters and two navy ships to rescue about 1,000 tourists and hundreds of residents who remain stranded in the town. Some 200 tourists were rescued by the end of Tuesday, but the AP did not have any information on how many residents had been removed from the town.
The earthquake, which struck just after midnight Monday, killed two and triggered a small tsunami. It also knocked out water supplies and sewer systems in Kaikoura. Landslides made roadways impassable, leaving people with no easy way out.
"From all directions, Kaikoura has essentially been isolated," Air Commodore Darryn Webb, the Acting Commander of New Zealand's Joint Forces, told the AP. "There's a real imperative to support the town because it can't support itself."
Radio New Zealand reports that pressure is mounting as fuel and supplies in the town dwindle.
Prime Minister John Key said the military began transporting people out Tuesday using four NH90 helicopters and two ships, the HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Wellington, which were sent to waters off the coast of Canterbury to assist. He added that the U.S. Navy had volunteered its help ferry people out aboard two helicopters on the U.S.S. Sampson, which was in the area.
"We're going to get as many people and belongings out as quickly as we can," Webb said.
Heavy rain on Tuesday hindered rescue crews as flooding compounded the impact of the earthquake. Luckily, Kaikoura was mostly spared the heaviest rain.
Dramatic footage emerged of a trio of cows isolated on a jut of land in a paddock that had been ripped apart during Monday's quake. The chunk of land was surrounded by deep ravines of collapsed earth, trapping the animals where they stood, according to the AP.
On Tuesday, those two cows and a calf were rescued after several people dug a track and moved them to safety, the AP also said.
Two cows and a calf have been cut off by the New Zealand earthquake after the ground around them gave way pic.twitter.com/QjpypOaY3j— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 14, 2016
The United States Geological Survey reported that the quake occurred 14 miles below the surface near the South Island.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said a tsunami was generated and measured 8.2 feet above normal tide level, according to a gauge near Kaikoura, New Zealand. A 1.4-foot tsunami was measured near Wellington.
As aftershocks continued to rock the nation, Key said during a press conference that the cleanup operation was expected to take months.
"It's just utter devastation, I just don't know ... that's months of work," Key said, adding that he believes the cleanup will run into the hundreds of millions, possibly billions of dollars.
Aerial photos captured by New Zealand’s air force show “massive rockfalls in several areas in the upper South Island," according to a Facebook update from the defense force.
At least 20,000 were evacuated from coastal communities following the quake, says Civil Defense Controller John Mackie.
Live Science
written by Tia Ghose, Senior Writer
Wednesday November 16, 2016
The magnitude-7.8 quake that rattled New Zealand, killing at least two people and stranding thousands of people, completely transformed the underlying faults in the region.
Six major faults ruptured as a result of the New Zealand quake, a new map reveals.
The Kaikoura earthquake struck the South Island of New Zealand early in the morning on Nov. 14 local time, triggering landslides, tsunamis and hundreds of aftershocks. And thousands of people were stranded when earthquake detritus dammed a river. During the quake, bystanders captured images of mysterious earthquake lights painting the sky in eerie blue and green.
To see how the massive temblor reshaped the landscape, Nicola Litchfield, a geologist with the geoscience consultancy group GNS Science in New Zealand, and colleagues flew over the South Island in a helicopter to take video footage of the region.
The team compared before-and-after images of the faults in the area.
It turned out the temblor had dramatically changed the earth beneath.
Four faults along the coastline ruptured and extended out into the sea, while another two faults ruptured inland, closer to the epicenter of the quake, Litchfield said. Ground-based GPS stations also reveal major motion at these faults, she added.
"The whole coast appears to have been uplifted from Cape Campbell all the way south to Kaikoura," Litchfield told Live Science. "The ones right on the coast appear to have very large movements, almost 1 meter [3.3 feet] up and almost 3 m [10 feet] — by the looks of things — sideways as well."
Now geologists are scrambling to figure out what this means for earthquake risk in the region.
"It's a really complicated area and there are a lot of faults here, so the earthquake will have relieved the stress in some places, but unfortunately will have increased the stress in others. That's what we are desperately trying to figure out now — what might have been loaded up."
New Zealand sits atop the incredibly complicated Marlborough Fault System, a set of four strike-slip faults (where two plates slide past each other rather than crashing into one another) that lie at the boundary of the Australian and Pacific plates. Farther East in the subduction zone, the Pacific plate is diving beneath the Australian plate, but almost all the locked stress there gets translated into motion along the Marlborough Fault System, Litchfield said.
The next step is to take ships out to send sound waves beneath the water to map the seafloor. By comparing before-and-after seafloor maps, geologists can determine how far offshore the ruptures extend, Litchfield said. That, in turn, will help reveal where faults are newly locked and loaded.
Because the quake is so new, the findings have not yet been published or submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, Litchfield said.
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