Many older buildings have also been strengthened, and city lifelines, including water and gas pipes, have been better designed. However, some newer buildings failed in the Canterbury earthquake of February 2011 and some were damaged in the Kaikōura earthquake of November 2016. In scientific terms, the Kaikura earthquake. Since then, strict rules about design and construction have been introduced in an attempt to prevent new buildings and bridges collapsing in a major earthquake. Shortly after midnight on Monday 14th November 2016, the 7.8 magnitude Kaikoura earthquake rocked New Zealand.

Others died in fires that could not be extinguished because the city water pipes had burst. In 1931, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Napier and Hastings, killing 258 people. Earthquake-resistant buildings and planning for civil defence will help save lives in these areas. In New Zealand, they have identified areas likely to have a damaging quake again. But they know that earthquakes happen repeatedly on some faults. Scientists cannot yet predict where and when earthquakes will strike. In an MM1 area, only a few people notice the quake, while in an MM12 area it causes total destruction. This is done by looking at the effects on people and buildings. The Modified Mercalli scale, from MM1 to MM12, measures the amount of shaking at different distances from an earthquake. The biggest recorded in New Zealand was the 1855 Wairarapa quake, measuring about 8.2. 1. The scale goes from less than 3.5 to more than 9. The magnitude scale measures the size, or magnitude, of an earthquake. There are two ways an earthquake is measured: Since 1840, more than 500 people have died as a result of large earthquakes in New Zealand. Every year the country has thousands of earthquakes, and about 200 are big enough to be felt. Blocks of rock on the faults sometimes move upwards or sideways, producing earthquakes.

Along these plates, there are many faults, such as the Alpine Fault and the Wellington Fault. New Zealand lies on the boundary between the Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate. Blocks of rock on each side of the fault move, and on the surface we feel the ground shaking. This usually happens along a fault – a split or weak point in the crust. Stress builds up in a plate’s crust (the top layer), and it suddenly breaks, releasing a massive amount of energy. Most earthquakes happen where two plates meet. Earth’s outermost layer is made of huge, slow-moving blocks of rock known as plates.

New zealand quake