Earthquakes are fun!

[Kristev]

I hope there was no serious, bad damage. May you all be safe and sound.

[Merriweather]

O-O
but-- the very earth moving beneath your feet,?


most people die because of stuff in a city/ inhabited areas, like buildings, resulting fires, fouled water...

First, to all those in or near Christchurch, & families of all those - SO glad to hear it wasn't as bad as it could have been (though I'm sure it's quite bad enough), and hope you have the least problems possible under the circumstances, and are back to normal very, very soon.

I've been in quite a few earthquakes (lots of years lived all over California), but the one that scared me the most wasn't even a very big one. My mind seems to be able to handle (I won't say no fear, but handle) the concept of the building all round me shaking like crazy. But I really freaked out the time a (fairly mild) quake hit when I happened to be standing in the back yard in my bare feet. My mind just really could not cope with the unavoidable fact that the earth under me, not a building or even a road, was doing the shaking.

Sounds like Christchurch has the fortunate advantage of planning buildings to withstand earthquakes, and actually having them built that way. One of the worst I recall in CA was the Selmar quake, where a brand new, state of the art, earthquake-proof hospital totally collapsed (followed by a messy scandal involving contractors, poor quality material, etc). The only good thing in the whole mess was the timing - it was just before they were ready to move patients in, so no one was hurt, at least not in the hospital itself (can't recall about surrounding area).

The comment on fires and so forth reminded me of some things I was reading recently (I'm an overflowing well of useless info). For close to a century the standard view on the San Francisco earthquake was that the fires caused by it did more damage than the quake itself. Now, there's evidence that it wasn't necessarily so. Seems that at the time, insurance companies paid out on buildings damaged by fire, but not by earthquake. So when filling out insurance forms, well, of course every house was standing after the quake, only to be destroyed by fire later..... Oh, and there's evidence that overall, damage was worse than we've believed over the years - they've found news photos clearly doctored to look like less damage to the cityscape, because the city beauracrats didn't want the people on the east coast to stop coming out to San Francisco.

[astyn-dbs]

The damage definitely isn't as bad as the news makes it look. That said, there's a lot of really bad damage, particularly in the centre of town, and a lot of buildings missing walls/fronts/etc. But all things considered, God smiled on us yesterday, because we were incredibly lucky. I keep thinking about Haiti - same size quake, but months later they're still struggling. I know wealth has a lot to do with that, but the point still stands. We'll be cleaned up and back to normal in a few weeks - we have very little to complain about.

The shocks are getting lighter too, thankfully .

[Seshat]

i'm glad you're ok; fuel should be the last thing on their minds, but sc's being what they are...

There will be people choosing to evacuate for a time. Those people will be needing fuel.

Emergency services, electricians*, plumbers/gasfitters, and others doing urgent work will also need fuel, but I'm sure that as the petrol stations get verified safe, those people will have priority.

* I never realised that an electrician could be classified as a first responder until a friend of mine (an electrician) pointed out that firefighters can't fight some fires until the power is turned off. And since the house-level switchboard might be involved in the blaze, that means someone who can climb the pole and turn it off at the pole.

In a post-earthquake situation, with burst water mains and gas pipes, plumbers and gasfitters are also emergency responders.

[Imogene]

I just started to think about how bad even a small earthquake would hit Texas... the ground in my area, at least, is mostly clay, and is known for foundation displacement... that's one of the major commercials you'll see on the local stations: "Foundation repair?"
If even a small quake hit us, I'd imagine the area would be decimated. Haven't had any that I know of...

[protege]

Glad nobody got hurt. We've had a few quakes here in Pittsburgh. Nothing serious--nobody actually felt them. But, they were enough to trip the seismograph at the museum

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Sending good thoughts and prayers your way. I'm glad to hear nobody was injured and that despite the magnitude, you're not experiencing the level of chaos that has been seen in other places hit by natural disasters.

Stay well and stay safe in the meantime.

[ApolloSZ]

Heh. I'm in Wellington, slept through the small effects we felt, but mum said she felt it. (then again, I sleep through anything )

Glad to hear you Cantabs are ok my friends down there have checked in and dad's house turned out to be fine (So far) so thats good.

Take care you cantabs, and don't think we'll go easy on you in Rugby because of this :P

(on a side note In wellington atleast, buildings have to be built one floor underground, for every five floors above. Not to mention the isolator foundations we use.)

[MoonCat]

Glad you're ok and hope things will be back to normal soon! We had a tiny tremor here in June (fault lines under NY state) and it freaked me out. Didn't even damage anything but that shaking scares the crap out of me, I can't imagine dealing with something over a 7!

[astyn-dbs]

Take care you cantabs, and don't think we'll go easy on you in Rugby because of this :P

Ha! Like we need you to go easy on us? We'll kick your asses any day, earthquake or no! :P

Thanks for your thoughts everyone. Things are starting to return to semi-normal, slowly.

[ApolloSZ]

Hey hope you guys still ok, heard about the big aftershock this morning!

(And you keep living in that Fantasy world there, thinking you'd win at rugby :P )

[astyn-dbs]

This morning wasn't so bad, it was yesterday when we had three good ones in one night that sucked. But yeah we're still here .

(And you keep living in that Fantasy world there, thinking you'd win at rugby :P )

If I'm in a fantasy world, you're living in a David Eddings series .