On February 22 2011, Christchurch, NZ suffered a 6.3 magnitude aftershock, which followed a 7.1 magnitude earthquake in September. The February quake caused significant damage to the city and the deaths of >160 people, whereas the initial September quake resulted in no fatalities (but billions in damage otherwise).

The September quake was totally unexpected, up until then, no fault was thought to exist near the city.

Peak acceleration (lateral movement) in the February Christchurch earthquake was 2.2G. For context, last year’s earthquake in Haiti which killed 300k+ “only” measured .5G. Per Wikipedia, a recorded lateral acceleration of 2.2G is the largest ever recorded.

Larger scale disaster (given unknown fault and scale of earthquake) was avoided by New Zealand’s stringent building codes (a pretty significant fault line runs through nearby Wellington and SW-NE through the rest of the country).

The effects of the earthquake upon the silty Christchurch soil were pretty pronounced, in the form of liquefaction. Liquefaction is the conversion of soil into a liquid upon stress (i.e. that from an earthquake) which causes the soil to lose strength and stiffness. This subsequent weakness in the soil was in large part responsible for the collapse of myriad Christchurch buildings, along with the large scale depositing of soil on the ground — liquefaction being forced through weak spots in road/surface.

Here’s a great video from Christchurch demonstrating the liquefaction effect:

Proving the power of the 7P’s, the September quake (with no fatalities) proved an impetus for creating detailed earthquake response plans, which ultimately saved an untold number of lives when the February quake occurred.

In meeting with people affected by the Earthquake, the individual stories they told were pretty astounding, and often heartbreaking. To meet the effects of the quake, we saw humor, charity, and the community coming together.

One example of this coming together, the Student Volunteer Army, really amazed me with the work they were doing. Organizing >15,000 students, the Student Volunteer Army was able to respond to citizen requests for help (jobs), sending teams of students to help out people in need (delivering water, removing silt, etc). Ultimately, thousands of jobs are being done daily to help recover from the earthquake. Louis Brown from the SVA was truly inspiring:

While there, a 4.8 magnitude aftershock happened while eating dinner at a friend of one of our team members. The house swayed for 10-15 seconds, and caused a little bit of excitement among our group (not the case for our NZ hosts, who talked through the whole thing, old hat I suppose).

Some photos from Christchurch and other links:

Aerial photographs from The Press, here.

Google’s Crisis Response page and GeoEye satellite imagery, here

The Christchurch Ushahidi mapping instance for the earthquake, here

More discussion on the power of the quake, here.

Some background on pre-Earthquake Christchurch:

And some photos I captured from the trip:

Or for the more map inclined, a KML of the photos I took here.

Overall, a really good and informative trip, the spirit of New Zealand coming together to assist those in need really was something I’ll remember for a long time.

If you’d like to help, please donate to the Student Volunteer Army, or the NZ Government Appeal.

Snowy and tree-y, as seen from the Sky Lounge

• The subway system might be the best I’ve experienced so far (even better than London?). Not only do the trains run very regularly (~5mins, all day/night), you can get almost anywhere in the city you’d like. Contrast this with BART/Caltrain, which runs every 30 minutes, ends at midnight, and gets you to only a few spots in the City.
• It was refreshing to see people “try” in New York — everyone dresses up and looks great (maybe I’ve just been on the West Coast too long).
• For any Minnesotan, Bar None is a must-visit. Being a MN sports bar, I went to watch the Vikings game there, totally insane.
• Assuming consistent 3g coverage and a gps signal, My Maps is a godsend. I was able to identify all the sights I wanted to visit beforehand via My Maps, load them onto my mobile phone(s) via Maps, and using Navigation, get turn-by-turn walking directions if I got lost (which I actually never had to do). The My Map I created (and kept updated throughout the trip) is included below.
• NYC has a cornucopia of Dunkin’ Donuts; having none in California I made sure to have a Boston Kreme donut (or two)
• Rain/work thwarted my attempts to see a Yankees/Mets game. Next time!
• I almost wrote off Delta airlines after my flight was delayed for 5 hours, and they were to strand me in Salt Lake City overnight with no lodging. But at the 11th hour (on final approach), the flight attendant came on the intercom to say that all stranded passengers would get lodging, and $14 in meal coupons.
• Some other random fun experiences: USS Intrepid, Goog NYC office, penthouse party in Tribeka, Greenwich Village, and having a 4-course dinner at the Iron Chef’s Buddakan restaurant.

Pictures/map below:

View New York 9/24-10/1 in a larger map

Snow Christmas Tree I

Snow Christmas Tree II

Update: It’s now 36 degrees here, and the snow Christmas tree is melting, bad…

Snow tree 9:00 PM

Update 2: The snow Christmas tree continues to melt, will it fall??

Snow tree ~10:00 PM

Update 3: The snow Christmas tree has toppled. It’s now 8 feet of melting snow, food coloring, and a plate… :\

Snow “tree” ~11:00 PM