Hey New Zealanders, are you OK?

[pastro243]

Rath said:

pacman91 said:

Rath said:

pacman91 said:

Rath said:

Yep. I actually live in Christchurch and the earthquake was pretty damned freaky. Really feeling for all those that lost loved ones at the moment.

Are there earthquake building codes in New Zealand?

Very good ones, largely because of fears for our capital city which is built on a major fault. It's unexpected for the quake to have hit in Christchurch.

Hmm, just curious.  Seattle had a 6.9 quake in 2001, with no where near the damage as this quake. I'm sure they are different scenarios though.

This quake was shallow at 5km deep, right near the city - only 10km from the city centre. It also followed a large earthquake 5 months ago and over 4000 aftershocks which will have weakened buildings.

I think its this, we had a 7.0 one like a week ago and it didnt break anything, and the 8.8 was like 30 km deep and that did break things but most of the things broken were not supposed to break(they were built wrongly and not respecting the law).

There are lots of things that can change how destructive it is, like the floor.