Hokey-pokey

When I was growing up in Hawkes Bay there were lots of elderly people around who could vividly recall the the 1931 Napier earthquake . I had an elderly neighbour who as a child , had watched the Central Hawkes Bay hills " rolling like ocean waves ". I've never forgotten those words.
We practised earthquake drills at school , and I had it pretty much drummed into me why NZ houses were built of wood , the safest place to stand in a house during an earthquake, not to run outdoors and how to recognise an impending tidal wave. Oh and why heavy objects above beds is a not a good idea.
I have experienced some darn good earthquakes ( all in Hawkes Bay ) and have found them utterly terrifying. Fortunately our old wooden villa always shook , jumped and swayed without damage. ( a few broken ornaments though in our family )

Sorry to digress - I know you were asking after Wellington, but it's not that far from the Bay. I hate earthquakes , they really frighten me. On a positive note, I have lived in other parts of NZ including Wellington and have never experienced the sort of seismic activity that Hawkes Bay can unleash.
Will a major earthquake occur in Wellington or indeed any populated part of NZ any time soon ? How's your crystal ball ?

crap coffee

yes, we do too, actually. surely they do..eh

I've got a friend who works for the The Department of Corrections.. on the Terrace. we often meet for lunch, and occasionally talk about earthquake issue very seriously ... He is also .. unprepared.. like me... btw I agree with Genesis.

RobClubley

Have to agree. You see bad driving every time you go out but earthquakes are rare.

crap coffee

yeah. absolutely positively..

Imz

Overall then its a pretty dangerous place then

You got the risk of earthquakes,Tsunamis and dangerous driving.....

See the UK doesnt have anything like this!

Mgee

NZ has its risks related to natural disasters, but so do many other countries. Tokyo, San Francisco and LA are directly on fault lines. Over here in Scandinavia the winter presents a theoretical risk every year: in -35 C a large power cut caused by a snow storm would be a disaster that would put hundreds of thousands of lives in jeopardy. Floods, droughts, landslides due to heavy rain etc. etc. are natural risks in most countries -including the UK. They're just not that often perceived as natural disasters, partly because their scale is usually (and luckily) smaller and they're less dramatic and usually don't happen as suddenly.

Natural disasters are scary, because they are out of our control and in a way very dramatic. Still man-made hazards can be at least equally dangerous: a large-scale environmental disaster (oil tanker, nuclear power plant etc.) can have consequences that affect far more people for generations and make the place uninhabitable for hundreds of years. In that sense one place on this planet is barely better than the others, you just have to choose which risks to take. At least in NZ there's no risk for a nuclear disaster.

Wooly_Cow

Nope you're right. The UK has many other things that are a risk like getting caught up in a terrorist attack, nuclear incident (not to mention exposure to radiation from nuclear waste - fish from the Irish Sea anyone?), air pollution (look up the number of people dying from lung problems caused by traffic fumes or industrial emmisions), extreme cold in winter (how many people died in Europe and the UK in the recent cold weather?) ......

I could go on. The point is that if you think about only the risks of living in a place you'd never get out of bed.

Frankly that's the key difference between the average Brit and the average Kiwi...the Brit sees danger or a risk and goes ' Oh ****', the Kiwi sees it and goes ' Bring it on!!!'

Wooly_Cow

Good post but the last point isn't strictly true. There are research reactors in New Zealand, some of which with pretty dodgy safety records.

Mgee

Really? I wasn't aware of that. Do you have any knowledge where they're located?

crap coffee

read about that too some time ago - there's a science library at work .. some unofficial sc research journals are available......

kamburu pat

Thanks for your input. I love Hawkes Bay!
I have some good friends in Gisborne and no doubt you will recall the earthquake in December 2006, it was 6.7 if I`m correct, my friend was getting married the day after it occured and part of the roof fell in the beauty parlour where Olive was at the time. I was told it was thirty or more years since Gisborne last had a quake like that one.
As you say, Hawkes Bay seems to be an active quake area but hopefully those quakes will remain very small!
Pat.

Imz

WHICH IS THE LEAST EARTHQUAKE PRONE CITY IN NEW ZEALAND I UNDERSTAND AUCKLAND IS SAFE

Stormer999

The UK has recorded 13 earthquakes in the last 30 days.........scary?
http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/rec...nt_events.html

Imz

Hi STormer,

but we dont live on any plates and those magnitudes are tiny mate....

I guess its fear i dont want to go to the other side of the world and end up in some disaster

Stormer999

We have recorded a 5.2...but indeed we loose most of our lives in floods and extreme cold. Think I will just risk it and see....