(I righted the bird bath after the initial earthquake. None of the after-shocks were sufficient to knock it over again.)
Two huge wrestlers, one representing 'Port Hills fault' and the other 'Greendale fault' struggle together over a broken Christchurch. Another wrestler, representing 'Other faults' appears in the distance yelling 'Is it my turn yet?' Context - Christchurch has now had three major earthquakes and thousands of aftershocks. It now appears likely that the Christchurch quakes resulted from activity on a fault extending directly eastward from the Alpine fault that remained unknown until last year, says Roger Musson, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh. The new fault first came to light last September (4th) when a stronger but less calamitous quake shook Darfield, 40 kilometres west of Christchurch. Musson says the latest quake (Feb 22, 2011) probably resulted from an eastward continuation of activity on the same fault. "It has probably not moved for tens of thousands of years, so lots of strain built up," says Musson. The third major quake happened on 13th June 2011. (New Scientist - February 22, 2011)
Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).
One of the many sand volcanos erupting from the ground after the Christchurch earthquake.
Laura and Max return to Christchurch from their holiday in California and inspect the earthquake-caused sand volcano in their front lawn.
And, yes, the newspaper always gets through! The Press newspapers were delivered in our area of Hoon Hay in the hours after the earthquake.
This has made a huge mess for the residents to clean up. I heard on the news that homes have been damaged by subsidence in areas of earthquake-caused liquefaction like this.
Lots of people were out and about in the streets checking on everyone after the earthquake. When it was clear that everyone was OK, the sand volcanos became the feature of interest.
It would have been a glorious Spring day in Christchurch had it not been for the magnitude 7.1 earthquake at 4:30 am.
All the water and silt you can see covering the street in this photo erupted from the ground following the earthquake.
Yes, it was a joke. The tours, that is, not the yard filled with earthquake-caused sand volcanos. They were very real. You can see one covering the driveway in this photo.
The signs read as follows.
"Tours run 1/2 hourly.
$5.25 admission.
Eftpos unavailable."
"If you think this is bad... you should see the back!"