Wellington’s quake plan revealed
Wellington has a new road map for getting back up and running after a major earthquake but the plan reveals it could take up to a week for the first emergency supplies to be shipped in.
The recovery plan – put together by the Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office (Wremo) – outlines how Wellington would likely respond in the first 10 days after a major earthquake.
It is expected a quake of magnitude 7.5 or higher along the Wellington Fault would damage road and rail links so badly that the region could be isolated for up to four months.
More than 80,000 people could be displaced if the earthquake struck on a weekday during a school term.
The Wremo plan reveals it would be more than a week before emergency water supplies were in place across the region, with other essential infrastructure out for much longer.
Wellington Airport would be out of action for at least two days.
But while the airport could support a limited number of emergency supply drops once it reopened, large shipments of essential food and welfare items would be at least a week away.
It is anticipated the first ships could arrive after six or seven days, with barges able to distribute supplies across Wellington Harbour to the Hutt Valley at about the same time.
It would be at least eight days before a region-wide water supply was restored, and two days before emergency shelters were opened and overseas help arrived.
Wellington Civil Defence Emergency Management group controller David Russell said the immediate challenge for the region would be providing critical medical support, and getting displaced people back home.
The report would be used as a template for local authorities on how to best respond to a disaster.
‘‘One of the other challenges is our communication links being cut off. We only have a small number of major roads into our region.
‘‘The Transmission Gully motorway will alleviate some of that [when it opens in 2020] but the emergency assistance areas might be open for quite some time where a population is isolated,’’ Russell said.
It was possible the airport’s runway could be completely damaged, putting it out of action for weeks, but that was unlikely.
‘‘Two-thirds of the runway is built on bedrock, so it’s one-third of the runway that will probably need repair. The other two-thirds we’re pretty confident will survive.’’
That scenario would mean small military aircraft could operate out of the airport, he said.
While the region could become functional inside 10 days if Wremo’s plan was followed, residents would be living in the ‘‘new normal’’ for several years until everything was back to the way it was before the earthquake.
Certain areas would be less affected than others, Russell said.
‘‘Some areas within our region are less affected by road outages, or have more modern water infrastructure, or can reroute a road link.
‘‘But it’s going to take years to get back to normal.’’