6.7 on the richter scale

[cirianz]

Don't worry, no one was hurt, the epicenter was down in fiordland
but it was the longest & strongest earthquake I've ever felt.
Usually, if one happens the epicenter is up the north island (they've got volcanoes & things up there)
& if we feel it the most we get is vibrations... a bit like a lorry going past in the street outside.
We just don't get them down this way. Normally anyhow.
It woke me up last night.
went on for ages
& there's been two aftershocks since
after 3am & again after 6am.
A wake-up call I suppose.
So easy to be complacent,
But **** can dump down anywhere really.
I lay awake for ages afterwards waiting.
Just in case we got hit by a big one.
& worrying if it had hit on land & wiped some town out.
cos I knew it had to be a big one.
I've never felt the ground actually rock before.
Just those vibrations.
& Fiordland! 6km from Milford sound!
One of NZd's biggest tourist attractions & only a few hours drive away.
scary.
It just doesn't happen down here!
Quite asides from the double meaning, I have to say I'm a bit shook up!

 

[Rush]

Glad to see you are OK

and nobody was hurt.. must have been the All Blacks stomping off the returning plane home

 

[Abarbarian]

Rock an roll with a vengance then .

 

[cirianz]

lol... wat's the difference between an all black & an arsonist...?

An arsonist wouldn't waste 5 matches

 

[Abarbarian]

lol... wat's the difference between an all black & an arsonist...?

An arsonist wouldn't waste 5 matches

 

[Rush]

Nice retort

Do you have (yourself) contingency plans ..just in case a bigger quake happens ? considering there are volcano`s close by ??

we have tremors and shakes in the UK but we dont have Volcano`s !!

 

[cirianz]

The Volcanoes are up the north Island. One of them burped earlier this year but generally they sleep pretty soundly. The South island is generally stable & no volcanoes anywhere near us. That's why this is such a surprise I suppose.

We are all supposed to have at least 3 days food & water in storage constantly according to standard civil defence recomendations.... & everyone knows what to do in a quake. We don't get TV anymore, but Civil defence would run regular adds for fire, quake or flood to make sure everyone knows what to do.


News is on... apparently there was a third aftershock at 8.20am, didn't feel that one luckily, hopefully they're dying down

 

[Taffycat]

Very glad to hear that you are safe and sound Ciri, that must have been a terribly scary experience. Hope all will be quiet again for you now. Keep safe.

 

[cirianz]

Very glad to hear that you are safe and sound Ciri, that must have been a terribly scary experience. Hope all will be quiet again for you now. Keep safe.

Not terribly scary, but quite unsettling. Still don't feel quite at ease although there's not really any reason why I shouldn't.

Creepy. Just had another one while I was typing this. Was quite a strong one, two waves. didn't last long though but getting really creeped out now. Shouldn't be getting aftershocks that strong this long after though. Or rather... they shouldn't be getting stronger. All my skin's gone all prickly.

 

[Ian]

I'm glad you're ok - it must be quite a shock if things like this don't really happen. I've found a news article on it if it's any use:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jDNivlQ5YsxLh5lzH5Wv-3Q75KCQ

Do you know how far away you are from the centre?

 

[psd99]

sounds interesting Cirianz glad to hear you survived.

It must be a difficult and scary moment to experience.

 

[cirianz]

Thanks Ian Checked out some of them articles, good info although all the different things people were saying were a laugh. The copper saying it did nothing more than rattle the blinds & the woman saying she had to hang on to the door frame to stay on her feet. Whatever, my daughter didn't have any trouble standing in the door frame (she was the only one who actually got off her ar*e & followed earthquake proceedure )
But it was sure as hell doing more than rattling the blinds here. & someone (an official type I think) said it only lasted about 30seconds, but both tomo & I timed it seperately from after we realised that it wasn't stopping & it lasted more than a minute from when we each started timing. & It had built up & peaked 5 times before I even woke up properly (I was getting more & more annoyed at whoever was making all that noise & waking me up until eventually it occured to me that there wasn't anyone over there to be making all that rackett & I jerked wide awake & fully aware that it was an earthquake. It was weird)
I then lay there for a while waiting for it to end, when it kept on going I wondered if I should go through & check the kids but didn't want to wake them I really didn't think it was anything serious. I really only started to get a bit worried when it kept on 'not finishing' & that's when I decided to time it. My alarm clock doesn't have seconds so, when I first checked the time it was 1:28 when it finally finished it was on 1:30. Over a minute but I don't know by how much.
Then I lay awake for ages unable to sleep & wondering 'what if it was a warning shake & there was a big one on the way'. John slept through the whole thing.
It was worse than usual, but I wasn't worried that the roof was about to fall in or anything (obviously or I'd've woken the others up & got everyone into the doorframes)

That last aftershock that I thought was stronger than it ought to be was 6.2 apparently. Same general location as the first one but they didn't say how deep it was.

The epicenter is 58km west of Milford sound which is on the west coast almost directly accross from us in Dunedin on the east coast. In a direct line it would be about 350Km

 

[Taffycat]

Just noseying around doing some News surfing, I see that the depth was said to be 24 km Ciri - that's according to Scoop. Another site called GeoNet (funded by the Earthquake Commision) are asking for people who felt the quake to let them know of their experiences. Perhaps you could put them right about the true intensity that was felt in your area

Hope you don't get any more.

 

[cirianz]

sounds interesting Cirianz glad to hear you survived.

It must be a difficult and scary moment to experience.

Thanks psd99, it is creepy. I just spoke to John on the phone & he said they didn't feel that aftershock up where he is at his boss's place up fairfield. He thought I was joking for a minute. Maybe that copper & that woman I mentioned wern't talking it down or up after all. John's only on the other side of Dunedin from us. Techinically he's actually closer by a few K's, but they didn't feel it at all up there. There's been two more aftershocks since, but the highest was only 4.5

 

[cirianz]

Just noseying around doing some News surfing, I see that the depth was said to be 24 km Ciri - that's according to Scoop. Another site called GeoNet (funded by the Earthquake Commision) are asking for people who felt the quake to let them know of their experiences. Perhaps you could put them right about the true intensity that was felt in your area

Hope you don't get any more.

Thanks TC, GeoNet are a good site
I've already been Monitoring them & filled in a report.
I'll pop over & check out Scoop & see what they have to say

 

[crazylegs]

Hey stay safe Ciri...

 

[cirianz]

Thanks CL

 

[cirianz]

Now this scared me

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

I was just back there checking on today's earthquakes & I decided to scroll down (it shows the last 30 quakes)
Apparently we've been having minor quakes right along the tectonic plate (it stretches diagonally most of the length of NZ) for the last few weeks but they were to low to be felt (around 3+/-) are we building up to a big one? Or was that the big one itself?
Really dunno if I'll sleep well tonight

I'm wondering if that's why they ran tsunami siren drills on friday?

 

[crazylegs]

Jesus now that scares the hell out of me and I'm a long way from you, so god knows how you must be feeling...

 

[cirianz]

3 more over night, 2 of them big ones over 5 on the richter scale. Didn't wake us up, but when I found John's tea cup sitting half off the bench I had figured there must've been something lol
Just another day of sitting around waiting I suppose.
Watch another 'scrubs' DVD for distraction
By the way.. heard the NZ "Black sheep" film hit the top 10 when it came out yesturday
never seen it myself (want to but John hates horror films)
but I've heard it's hilarious & sh*t scary.

The annoying thing is the waiting. Not knowing if we're building up or settling down. I suspect even the seismologists don't actually know that either. & most people are just following what they've heard on the news & don't really realise that we're looking at a long term, building pattern of shakes right along the fault line.