[chinesekiwi]

Power's out in a lot of places in the city, but lucky my part of town still has power. I got friends that lives a couple of kms/ miles from me and their power is out. (I guessing my part of town still has power cuz it's an industrial area thus I'm guessing the pioritisisation of electricity and thus line quality and strength). Audio equipment is fine! I can a test to the build quality of my rig!
 
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010atbj.html
 
summed up: Magnitude 7.2, epicentre was 30km SW of Christchurch (basically bang on a major New Zealand army base), with it being 16km (10 miles) deep = very shallow.
Aftershocks are still going on. Christchurch has about 380,000 people.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Glad to hear you two are OK.  A 7.0 is a pretty good shaker!
 
But how is everyone else down there?  Any injuries or worse?  Besides power outages, any significant damage to buildings?
 
Have any aftershocks turned up yet?

 

[chinesekiwi]

Sirens everywhere, reports of looting
 
Pictures:
 

 

 
I love timing don't you?
 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch/4006872/Call-for-quake-safe-deadline-to-be-shortened
 
Aftershock right there as I writ this. there was also a 5.7 aftershock 8 minutes after. the mian one hit at 4:45AM local time.
 

 

[chinesekiwi]

 

[nikongod]

I just youtubed some videos of a 7.0 earthquake simulations on buildings and bridges. Holly OMG wow.
 
Glad to hear you are OK.

 

[chinesekiwi]

Live NZ radio from callers calling about it:
 
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/streaming/listenlivewindow/
 
many people have minor injuries. No deaths to report to date. Lots of buildings damaged. Some traffic lights are out. Road damage. Mad rush for petrol and vehicles on the road trying to visit relatives. Sun's coming out so it's time to really assess the damage.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Yikes - that's a lot of damage.  The old brick buildings don't fare well unless they get seismic reinforcements.  You can see them drilled into the walls all around Los Angeles.
 
And a 5.7 aftershock is nothing to sneeze at, either.
 
Sure hope everyone you know is OK.

 

[chinesekiwi]

use a proxy if needed for the radio link. Real-time updates and not hyped by overseas media outlets e.g. an 'expert' on Al-Jazerra saying the Christchurch has a population of half a mill = NOT! It's about 380,000.

 

[chinesekiwi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpjAFSdD5zM&feature=player_embedded
 
there was a report of a 4.3 aftershock as well. Land based earthquake so no Tsunami warning needed.

 

[chinesekiwi]

 

[chinesekiwi]

cnn report
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ne1_tEDi-M&feature=player_embedded
 
the red dot is inaccurate. it should be closer to 'Lincoln'. 

 

[chinesekiwi]

Updated reports:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10671050

 

[ahilal]

Ouch - all those masonry facades just got shrugged right off. Can you imagine if you were walking in or out of one of those doorways when all those bricks hit the pavement?
 
I'm writing from San Francisco, where there are a lot of old buildings with similar facades. They're all reinforced / bolted on though, according to local law.  
 
Glad you are ok. Hope regulations there catch up with reality soon.

 

[chinesekiwi]

 
Many facades are earthproofed as you can see in this pic. earthquake proofed is like the red one. A lot arn't however. the police has cordoned off the CBD. Traffic lights are out. lots of aftershock. one there a few seconds ago. Water is out.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Do you have a supply of water or know where you can get some?