Hundreds of aftershocks rattle earthquake-hit New Zealand
Nowhere to move: 3 cows stranded by earthquake
wellington — A strong new earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 rattled New Zealand’s South Island on Monday, hours after a more powerful quake killed at least two people, damaged roads and buildings and sent thousands fleeing to higher ground.
Emergency response teams were flying by helicopter to the region at the epicentre of the original 7.8 magnitude quake, which struck just after midnight some 91km northeast of Christchurch in the South Island, amid reports of injuries and collapsed buildings.
New Zealand’s capital Wellington was a virtual ghost town with workers ordered to stay away while the city council assessed the risk to buildings. Severe weather with 140 km per hour, gale-force winds was forecast for the area.
The new tremor, a 6.2 quake recorded at about 1.45 p.m. local time (0045 GMT), was the most powerful of hundreds of aftershocks in the South Pacific country. It rattled frayed nerves in an area where memories of a deadly 2011 quake are still fresh.
Christchurch, the largest city on New Zealand’s ruggedly beautiful South Island, is still recovering from the 6.3 quake in 2011, which killed 185 people.
In the upper South Island, powerlines and telecommunications were down, with huge cracks in roads, land slips and other damage to infrastructure making it hard to reach the worst-affected areas.
“It’s just utter devastation, I just don’t know ... that’s months of work,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key told Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee after flying
It’s just utter devastation, I just don’t know ... that’s months of work. over the area, according to Twitter statement issued by Brownlee.
New Zealand’s Civil Defence declared a state of emergency for the South Island’s Kaikoura region, centred on a tourist town about 150km northeast of Christchurch, soon after Monday’s large aftershock.
Kaikoura, a popular spot for whale watching, appeared to have borne the brunt of the quake.
Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) said later on Monday a 20-person rescue team and two sniffer dogs had arrived in the town. A second team was on standby in Christchurch, USAR said in a statement.
Hours after the quake, officials said a slip dam caused by the quakes that had blocked the Clarence River on the South Island had breached, sending a wall of water downstream.
“Residents are urgently advised to move to higher ground immediately,” RNZ quoted a statement from the Marlborough District Council as saying.
A tsunami warning that led to mass evacuations after the original quake was downgraded after large swells hit Wellington, in the North Island, and Christchurch. There were no new tsunami warnings issued after the 6.2 aftershock.
New Zealand’s Geonet measured Monday’s first quake at magnitude 7.5, while the US Geological Survey put it at 7.8. — wellington — Three New Zealand cows looked like they could use a little help on Monday after an earthquake triggered landslides all around them and left them stranded on a small island of grass.
Video taken by Newshub news service from a helicopter near the small town of Kaikoura shows two adult cattle and a calf stuck on a chunk of land in a paddock that had been ripped apart in Monday’s magnitude-7.8 quake. The patch of grass was surrounded by deep ravines of collapsed earth, trapping the animals where they stood.
It was not immediately clear who owned the cattle or what was being done to help them.
New Zealand’s 10 million cattle easily outnumber its 4.7 million people. —