Aftershocks rattle New Zealand after big quake
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aftershocks rattle New Zealand after big quake*
Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:49pm GMT
WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A series of aftershocks rattled the New Zealand
city of Gisborne on Friday as officials assessed damage caused by the
country's strongest earthquake in 20 years, which injured several people.
The 6.8 magnitude quake struck the city on the east coast of the
country's North Island just before 9 p.m. on Thursday (0800 GMT),
sending people to higher ground and disrupting power, phone and water
services.
Authorities declared a state of emergency as council workers began
cleaning up the city centre and assessing the full extent of the damage.
Three buildings partially collapsed during the quake, which also opened
holes in roads, smashed shop awnings and windows, and spilled goods from
shelves.
"Council building inspection teams are already on the job assessing
outside buildings in the inner city, about a dozen blocks of which have
been cordoned off," Gisborne District Council spokesman Vance Walker
told the NZ Press Association.
The local hospital treated 11 people for minor cuts and grazes, but
there were no serious injuries.
Three aftershocks measuring between 3.4 and 4.5 shook the city following
the main quake, all centred at the same site about 50 km (30 miles) off
the coast, south east of Gisborne.
"I'm a little surprised actually that we've not had more already,"
seismologist Warwick Smith told National Radio.
"I would fully expect there would be more aftershocks."
Thursday's quake was described by witnesses as a series of sharp shocks
with a roaring sound. Seismologists said its depth had prevented greater
damage and the risk of a tsunami.
It was felt widely along the east coast of both the North and South
Islands, including in the capital Wellington, about 400 km south of
Gisborne.
New Zealand scientists record about 14,000 earthquakes a year, of which
around five top 6.0 on the Richter scale.
The last fatal earthquake in the geologically active country, caught
between the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, was in 1968
when an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale killed three
people on the South Island's west coast.
(Reporting by Kazunori Takada)