Earthquake hits New Zealand’s South Island

• 7.8-magnitude quake hit New Zealand’s South Island at 12.02am Monday local time
• At least two people dead
• Extensive damage reported, particularly in Wellington
• Locals ordered to evacuate amid tsunami threats

Marlborough District Council has urged residents to move to higher ground immediately.

Sixteen rafters who were on the flooded river have been located by police. A separate group of kayakers has also been found.

The water had been banking up behind the slip, about 10 to 12km up from the mouth, and broke through about 4.20pm local time.

It is expected to take three-five hours for the ‘wall’ of water to travel the 50km of the Clarence River to the coast.

Two large aftershocks — including one measuring 6.3 — have today struck New Zealand towns already cut off by the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that’s claimed two lives, caused major landslips and destroyed buildings and highways in the country’s South Island.

A severe magnitude 5.7 quake struck 20 kilometres east of Seddon at 1.34pm (local time), shaking Wellington, and several smaller South Island towns that felt the worst of the main tremor.

That earthquake was almost instantly followed by a magnitude 6.3, 30 kilometres north of Cheviot.

The area has been subject to a steady stream of aftershocks since the 7.8 magnitude quake centred near Hamner Springs just after midnight.

It claimed two lives, leaving one person dead in the small coastal town of Kaikoura and another in Mt. Lyford, a nearby ski resort.

DEADLY SHOCK

The earthquake struck New Zealand’s South Island, prompting emergency services to warn residents along the coast to move to higher ground to avoid tsunami waves.

It hit just after midnight in a mostly rural area that’s dotted with small towns. Near the epicentre, it opened up snaking fissures in roads and triggered landslides.

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It caused damage in Wellington, the capital, more than 200km to the north and was also strongly felt in the city of Christchurch to the south.

Residents said the shaking went on for about three minutes, and was followed by a number of strong aftershocks.

More than 250 aftershocks have been recorded so far including three over magnitude six.

It was the largest quake to hit New Zealand since the 7.8 Dusky Sound earthquake in 2009, according to seismologist Sara McBride.

The severe earthquake may have been a combination of two different types of tremors, GeoNet reports.

“It looks like we’ve got two separate but related quakes going on. Our reports indicate that the combination of these two quakes lasted two minutes, with the most severe shaking at around 50 seconds,” GeoNet said.

URBAN RESCUE

Brownlee says the immediate priority is ensuring the delivery of clean water, food and other essentials to the residents of Kaikoura and the estimated 1000 tourists there.

The Defence Force has been given the job, and will mainly use its helicopters. HMNZS Canterbury will also be used.

Rescuers were left scrambling to reach Kaikoura, which had no telecommunications and was isolated by landslips, making it accessible only by helicopter.

Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said a clearer picture of the scale of the damage was slowly emerging.

“I think had there been serious injury or suspected further loss of life than we would have heard about it by now,” he told Radio New Zealand.

He added: “It looks as though it’s the infrastructure that’s the biggest problem, although I don’t want to take away from the suffering... and terrible fright so many people have had.”

A specialist New Zealand search and rescue team has arrived in Kaikoura to assess damage in the South Island coastal town.

The 20 strong team were deployed with two rescue dogs from Christchurch and another 20 members remain on stand-by in the city.

Search and rescue teams in North Island have joined emergency response efforts in Wellington as they help assess buildings using drone surveillance.

A local state of emergency has been declared in Kaikoura and Hurunui, and Marlborough District Council says police are working to rescue travellers stranded around Kaikoura.

There is no sewerage and no household water supply, but power is being restored. Shops are closed and people are not able to buy food, fuel or water. “All residents are strongly urged to conserve water,” the council said. “It may take days to restore the household water supply.”

FATALITIES CONFIRMED

One person was believed to have died at a historic homestead which collapsed at the town, while police were trying to reach the scene of a fatality at a remote property north of Christchurch.

Prime Minister John Key confirmed the fatalities in a national address.

“We don’t have any indications at the moment to believe it (the death toll) will rise, but we can’t rule that out,” Key said.

“The situation is still unfolding and we don’t yet know the full extent of the damage”.

Key said waves of about 2 meters hit the coast but the tsunami threat had since been downgraded to coastal warnings. He said authorities had no reason to believe the death toll would rise above the two reported fatalities.

“On the very best information we have at the moment, we think it’s only likely to be two (dead). But of course there are isolated parts of the country which we don’t have perfect eyes on, so we can’t be 100 per cent sure,” he said.

The quake temporarily knocked out New Zealand’s emergency call number, 111, police reported. In Wellington, it destroyed a ferry loading ramp, broke windows and caused items to fall from shelves. It also forced hundreds of tourists onto the streets as hotels were evacuated.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS

Australian tourists Paul and Sandra Wardrop and their children Alexander, 15, and William, 12, were on the 10th floor of the Park Hotel when the shaking began.

“We felt that the building was going to collapse,” Sandra Wardrop said.

“You could hear the sounds of the building shaking and see cracks appearing in the walls, in the plasterwork in the bedroom.”

The family was among dozens of people who took shelter in the capital’s parliamentary complex, which threw open its doors.

Meantime, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reassured New Zealand of Australia’s absolute solidarity in the wake of the earthquake.

Mr Turnbull also passed on Australia’s condolences for the two New Zealand citizens who had died.

“New Zealand is very experienced with dealing with earthquakes and I am sure [the Prime Minister] will have the matter in hand,” Mr Turnbull said today.

“It is a deeper quake than the one from Christchurch but it has been felt across New Zealand,” he said.

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“John’s office was in Wellington and they felt it.

“Furniture was knocked over and plates were thrown out of cupboards.

“It has been felt as far as Auckland.”

Wellington remains in shutdown as the damage is assessed, while New Zealand’s central bank and stock exchange officials say the nation’s payments systems are unscathed and the stock market is expected to open as normal.

TSUNAMI THREAT

New Zealand’s Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management reported that a tsunami wave struck at about 1.50am local time and warned residents living in low-lying areas anywhere along the country’s east coast to move to higher ground.

Information from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre indicated that the tsunami waves were highest around the South Island town of Kaikoura, at about 1.5 metres.

The Hawaii-based centre said it did not expect the quake to generate a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami.

The ministry said people on the coast near the epicentre could expect waves of between three and five metres.

Meantime, a seismologist has claimed the so-called “supermoon” could have triggered the disaster.

“When you get the tidal forces from the moon it does cause increased stresses in the Earth’s crust, so what can happen, potentially, is if you did have a fault that was almost at the very tipping point of rupturing, this could potentially act as the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said GNS Science seismologist John Ristau, according to news site newshub.co.nz.

Clutha District and Dunedin, the South Island’s second largest city, were both evacuating low-lying coastal areas following the tsunami threat. Emergency services in Dunedin declared a state of emergency, but it has now been lifted, according to an official notice on Twitter.

Christchurch Civil Defence and Emergency Management has advised people who live outside the evacuation areas in the city who have left their homes that they can now begin to make their way home.

Christchurch Civil Defence Controller John Mackie said it was important to note that this applies only to those outside the evacuation areas. People inside those areas should still go inland or head to higher ground.

EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Police said they were trying to reach a remote property 150 kilometres north of Christchurch where a casualty, “believed to be a fatality”, has been reported. Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said there were also reports of casualties at the nearby South Island coastal town of Kaikoura, but details were unclear.

Local media reported emergency services were searching for a missing person in a collapsed homestead near Kaikoura. A second person who had been thought missing in the building was found alive.

Authorities in Wellington were urging people who work in the centre of the city to stay home. City officials said that some large buildings were showing signs of structural stress, and that the quake would likely have caused a mess in some buildings. The city’s suburban rail network was shut while crews checked tracks, bridges and tunnels.

CAPTURING THE MOMENT

Those caught up in the quake said they feared for their lives. Pam Bennett from Amberley told TVNZ the quake was the worst she’s ever felt.

“It was like my house was on a bungee cord — boom, boom, boom, backwards and forwards. I just couldn’t stand up no matter what,” she said.

Anna Harcourt told the Herald Sun: “I was asleep and all off a sudden I was woken to my bedroom shaking. It just went on and on and there was a moment when I genuinely thought that this was it, that my life was going to end.”

Ms Harcourt said she ran out of her bedroom and hid for cover under a table.

“As soon as the trembling stopped my boyfriend and I ran outside and saw heaps of people and families gathered together,” she said. “Everyone is in complete shock … it’s terrifying.”

Social media video and photos showed fearful New Zealanders out on the street in the wake of the massive quake. They also showed the floors of supermarkets strewn with items knocked from shelves by the quake.

Christchurch resident Hannah Gin had just sat down in her living room to watch a replay of the national rugby team’s weekend match against Italy when her house started shaking. Upstairs, her mother let out a scream.

Gin, a 24-year-old lifelong Christchurch resident, is accustomed to quakes, so she said she sat calmly and waited, figuring the rumbling would stop in a few seconds. Instead, she said by telephone, the shaking just went on and on — for at least three minutes, according to the clock on her phone.

The quake was far less violent than the one that struck Christchurch in 2011, Gin said, adding that there was no jarring up and down or side to side, just a long, rolling sensation. But it went on for much longer than the typical quakes that strike the area, she said.

She was less concerned about running for cover than she was about vomiting from the motion sickness, she said with a chuckle.

“I could hear the sliding door sliding back and forth, and we’ve got washing hanging up and I could see the washing moving,” Gin said. “It just kept going and going.”

She said that her house, which was damaged in the 2011 quake, did not appear to have sustained any new damage from Monday’s quake. She also said she had heard from many of her friends who live in the city, and all were safe.

“As far as I know, everyone’s fine,” she said. “We’re all just really shaken.”

Warning: Graphic language

There were reports that houses in Cheviot, near where the quake was centred in Canterbury, were badly affected by the shake. Photos and videos posted to social media showed shelves overturned inside homes, wine bottles smashed on the ground of stores and people out on the street following the initial quake.

NEW ZEALAND: Residents Head to the Hills as Tsunami Sirens Sound in Sumner November 130:16

Residents of Sumner, a suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand, headed to the nearby hills after a magnitude-7.4 earthquake struck the country's Southern Island on November 13. This video shows cars hitting the road as tsunami sirens are turned on. The New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence (MCDEM) warned residents on the east coast to move to higher ground due to a tsunami threat caused by the quake. Credit: Twitter/georgeberrynz via Storyful

• November 14th 2016
• 3 days ago
• /video/video.news.com.au/Technology/

NEW ZEALAND: Residents Head to the Hills as Tsunami Sirens Sound in Sumner November 13

Originally published as Quake ‘dam’ burst new NZ threat