
New Zealand's Tectonic Dragon Awakens - my_first_acct
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/new-zealands-tectonic-dragon-awakens
======
my_first_acct
People in the Pacific Northwest might be interested in this previous New
Yorker article about the Cascadia subduction zone, and the earthquake that
will someday hit: [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-
big-...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one)

~~~
NamTaf
This was a really good, morbid read. Thank you.

~~~
tajen
Indeed, the order of the story is interesting: Starts with the trees that are
all the same age in a given place at an 8-months precision, continues with
Indian stories related to an event at 50-year precision, and confirmed by
Japanese record tracking at a few minutes precision... And the story continues
with the primary earthquake, followed by all secondary events, each increasing
in exponential damage. It's a great, relatable report of the state of
knowledge.

But I can't represent myself the map or extent of this damage. Do we expect 5m
people to die in Seatle and Vancouver, or are we expecting rather 100m people
to die from Los Angeles to Alaska, and another 1m in Japan?

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knz
The article barely mentions the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes - that did
more to awaken people to the potential hazard. Most kiwis know about the
Napier earthquake in 1932 but it's a distant memory and until 2010 big
earthquakes were always something that occurred in remote places like Dusky
Sound or Inangahua.

~~~
mrmondo
Yep worked in Christchurch hospital through both, hell of a thing, destroyed
the entire city.

~~~
EdwardDiego
No it didn't. It destroyed large sections of the CBD, and the eastern suburbs,
and that's it. Don't exaggerate please, my city is very much still here and
present.

~~~
mrmondo
It's very, _very_ hard for me to hold back an emotional response right now. It
destroyed practically everything, I worked in the CBD as I said, at the
hospital, I know what buildings were brought down because I watched bodies
from those buildings enter my building and many of them not leave, I then
didn't flee Christchurch straight away, I stayed a year after the second quake
to help where I could while I thought I was still valuable. The tilt slab
concrete crap that remained was no part of Christchurch they were warehouses
and storage facilities turned industrial or commercial sites. The buildings
that were destroyed were Christchurch, did some of them rebuild - sure but not
many of them and most never can because they wouldn't be up to code. I'm
leaving this hear as to be quite honest I think you're only trying to get an
emotional backlash that would make me look irrational.

~~~
vosper
I grew up in Christchurch and lived there until I was in my late 20s. I moved
to London like many Kiwis do, but I was back when the Darfield earthquake hit.
I moved to SF just before the February quake and came back to the city to
visit a few weeks later, due to a death in the family (unrelated to the quake)
and because I couldn't stand watching it all on TV and not being there. I've
since returned to Christchurch most years to visit family and friends.

I completely agree with your feelings out the change to the city. Before I
left for London Christchurch was coming into its own, arts and music were
blooming (I was involved with RDU), downtown was finally being revitalized -
there were cool places in the old brick buildings on Poplar Lane, alternatives
to the miserable Strip bars where adults could go out and have fun. I really
felt the city had bright prospects as an alternative to Auckland that wasn't
sleepy and centered around agriculture. New Zealand's second city.

Then the earthquake came and ruined everything. Visiting the wreckage of the
central city depressed me every time. Also, whenever I visit the interesting
things that remain (there's no replacing the Dux in the old Arts Centre) are
scattered now all over the city and require a lot of driving or an expensive
taxi to get to.

I just can't see myself moving back, at least not for 10-20 years, when we see
how this rebuild plays out. It's Auckland or another country, now.

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Lerc
Drone video of the rupture from the Quake
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITbplXBtM8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITbplXBtM8M)

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mcbain
The article only touches on the more troubling of NZ fault lines - if the
Alpine Fault ruptures, or "unzips" as it is commonly referred to, then really
bad things will happen. M8+ earthquakes and major changes to the rest of the
South Island.

And this is somewhat likely in the next 50 years.

[https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-
Topics/Earthqua...](https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-
Topics/Earthquakes/Major-Faults-in-New-Zealand/Alpine-Fault)

~~~
my_first_acct
Here are a couple of maps showing 10 years of New Zealand earthquakes. The map
of deep earthquakes gives a remarkably clear view of the Hikurangi subduction
zone (color = depth) [https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-
Topics/Earthqua...](https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-
Topics/Earthquakes/New-Zealand-Earthquakes/Where-do-earthquakes-happen-in-NZ)

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danieltillett
As a resident of Australia I have always liked that I live in the middle of a
contential plate that has not been under a mile of ice in the recent past.
Sure we lack majestic mountains, but geological stability is a nice
alternative.

~~~
disordinary
The problem is complacently means that when small events happen you're going
to suffer comparatively more.

I used to work for a structural engineering firm here in New Zealand, and we
had to bring in a whole lot of Australian Engineers to meet the workload of
assessing buildings in Christchurch after the Earthquake. They said that
engineering in Australia is dull and easy compared to in NZ, which is fine
until something happens.

Back in 89 there was a comparatively minor Earthquake in Newcastle which
resulted in a disproportionate amount of damage and unfortunate loss of life.

I'd kind of rather be sitting in a base isolated modern NZ building in a large
earthquake than a non earthquake sound building in another country in a minor
earthquake. Of course if I never have to live through another earthquake I'd
be most happy.

Be safe. :)

~~~
trprog
Its all about spending your energy preparing for more likely damaging events.
In Australia little attention gets paid to earthquakes but fire safety
standards and preparation are no joke, especially in the country.

Maintaining fire breaks and doing controlled burns are a big part of life for
a lot of country people. Its not entirely uncommon for people to have backup
generators and a pump specifically so they can still pump water in the event
of a fire and power has been lost. Many homes that are surrounded by bush sit
on their own little island of barren ground that has been cleared of virtually
all vegetation.

It freaks out me out seeing TV shows from the US in particular where they have
houses surrounded by trees with trees literally hanging over the house. The
road leading out also has a beautiful canopy of trees right against the side
of the road. They look like deathtraps to me but presumably they don't live in
a walk-in tinderbox like some parts of Australia.

~~~
hga
Yeah, it depends on the region, but here in my pretty wet part of SW Missouri
we have "Red Flag" days
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_warning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_warning))
when we have to be extra careful, but we're simply not in real danger of that
sort of disaster, although I did remove the tree "literally hanging over the
house" and damaging the roof of the house I recently bought that was built in
1910, that's just simple prudence in many dimensions.

But the house is still surrounded by trees, including a couple of giant maples
in the back yard which need topping, then again this is in city neighborhood
with 0.06 or a bit more hectare residential lots, without a good fire fighting
service it would have eventually gotten burned out one way or another. We've
even got one city, Somerville, MA, which has enough fuel density in its
residential buildings to support a true firestorm (and I've watched their
firefighters in action, they's _good_ ).

On the other hand, out in the drier western part of the country, in plenty of
it people ought to take the sorts of precautions you outline, but of course
many are complacent and expect the government to come to their rescue, are
just willing to make the tradeoffs (many areas aren't _that_ dry), or I'm sure
in some cases are limited by zoning from doing the smart thing.

Here we also had many decades of insane government forestry polices where
simply stopping all fires was the paradigm. You can guess what the eventual
result was, as well as how dicey trying to do the first controlled burn of a
fire suppressed area is....

~~~
disordinary
When I was a kid at school in Auckland we had regular earthquake and volcano
drills. I'm sure the earthquake drills are even more regular here in
Wellington, we also have Tsunami sirens and every coastal suburb has lines on
the roads and footpaths directing you to Tsunami safety zones.

It's amazing what people will put up with :)

~~~
hga
Rather similar here in Tornado Alley, and put to the test in the smallish city
I was born and raised in, and retired to in time for the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado)

Yeah, if you grow up with the threat, it's not that big a deal until one hits.

~~~
disordinary
A few years ago I was flying to Russia from New Zealand, a friend of mine was
flying to Ireland. Ironically we were both on the same flight from Auckland to
Osaka, and then on the same flight from Osaka to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt our
flights diverged.

In Osaka I was called to the checkout, where in typical Japanese efficiency
they said there were some issues at Frankfurt and they had already printed my
ticket for my next flight. This was a life saver.

Anyway, it turns out there was a huge snow storm and Frankfurt was having to
cancel 500 flights a day. The place was like a refugee camp with thousands of
people sleeping on stretchers, etc. The queue to talk to anyone or checkin
lasted for hours, and people couldn't leave the airport because if your name
was called for a flight you had to be there to take it. Every single flight in
Europe's busiest airport were grounded except the Russians, the biggest snow
storm in years was nothing and I only had to wait a couple of hours, my friend
was there for a couple of days. So it really is amazing what you're used to.

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EdwardDiego
This article is so full of factual errors it's not funny.

1) "Kaikoura, sixty miles north of Christchurch" \- it's closer to 90 miles -
in a straight line across the ocean. If you are driving, it's even further.

2) "The North Island, where the capital, Wellington, lies, is part of the
Australian plate, and its landscape is dominated by two dozen active
volcanoes." \- 24 active volcanoes in the North Island? Pity that we're only
monitoring 11 of them then.
[https://www.geonet.org.nz/volcano/](https://www.geonet.org.nz/volcano/)

3) "that the earthquake, like the one that devastated Christchurch in 2010" \-
It happened in 2011. The initiating earthquake happened in 2010, yes, but the
aftershock that killed people and brought down buildings in ChCh occurred on
Feb 22 2011.

~~~
NeutronBoy
Regarding your point 2 - some of those are volcanic fields that contain
multiple volcanoes.

~~~
EdwardDiego
Auckland volcanic field contains multiple extinct volcanoes, it's monogenetic.

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northisup
Are we surprised that Mordor is a land full of fire and dragons?

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vorg
> the Maori arrived, in the thirteenth century

Is the reason there's no inhabitants in NZ who arrived before 1300 AD because
earthquakes and volcanos killed them all off? That big mountain island in the
sea just off Auckland called Rangitoto only popped up about 600 years ago and
its Maori name means "Bleeding into the Sky" so I guess they saw it all.

~~~
civilian
No, the Polynesian colonization of the pacific islands just happened pretty
late in history.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia#History_of_the_Polyn...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesia#History_of_the_Polynesian_people)

~~~
Taniwha
Yes NZ was just about the last place on the planet discovered and settled by
humans.

That's partly because the Polynesian settling of the Pacific was done from
Taiwan across the north to the Americas and then back across the south

~~~
civilian
"to the Americas" \-- do we have proof that they made it to the Americas?

[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140318-polyn...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140318-polynesian-
chickens-pacific-migration-america-science/)

~~~
Taniwha
They brought kumara, a sweet potato, back to NZ with them from the Americas.

There's also possible evidence they brought chickens to Chile, and I believe
some evidence of Polynesian canoe designs showing up in California

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boznz
Harden up guys..

Still a million times better living here than most other places IMHO

~~~
eikenberry
Why? What makes it nice?

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module0000
No NSA, FBI, CIA, DHS, etc... /s

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mrmondo
Um, NZ does have a huge amount of internet / phone spying, most so than many
places and it's part of the five eyes, so I'd think twice before posting about
what you don't understand.

~~~
module0000
I think I understand what NZ has, and while it may be deplorable...there are
degrees of deplorable, and it's preferable to my(US citizen) current climate
of deplorable.

