{"id":9231,"date":"2013-08-16T07:35:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T07:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9231"},"modified":"2013-08-16T07:35:43","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T07:35:43","slug":"earthquake-shakes-central-new-zealand-damaging-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9231","title":{"rendered":"Earthquake shakes central New Zealand, damaging homes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Scene<\/a>
Scene from New Zealand after its previous earthquake in 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Strong earthquakes shook central New Zealand on Friday, damaging homes, destroying a bridge and sending office workers scrambling for cover in the capital. No serious injuries have been reported.<\/p>\n

A magnitude-6.5 temblor struck just after 2:30 p.m. near the small South Island town of Seddon, and at least six aftershocks were 5.0 magnitude or stronger.<\/p>\n

Several homes near the epicenter were severely damaged, with chimneys collapsing and roofs caving in, said police spokeswoman Barbara Dunn. She said a bridge was severely damaged on the main highway near Seddon, and that rocks and debris had fallen onto the road. Police closed a section of the highway.<\/p>\n

Some buildings in Wellington, the capital, were evacuated, and items were knocked off shelves in places.<\/p>\n

Police said a number of people were freed from Wellington elevators that stopped working. The initial temblor also forced the nation’s stock exchange to close for more than an hour.<\/p>\n

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said there was no major damage to the city’s infrastructure or office buildings. She said highways had become clogged as people left the city.<\/p>\n

“We think this is business as usual,” she said, “but it is going to take a little while for people to get home tonight.”<\/p>\n

The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the initial temblor was 94 kilometers (58 miles) west of Wellington at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).<\/p>\n

A quake of similar strength in the same area three weeks ago broke water mains, smashed windows and downed power lines.<\/p>\n

Caroline Little, a seismologist with New Zealand quake monitoring agency GeoNet, said the series of quakes since July had followed an unusual pattern.<\/p>\n

“Normally you get a big quake and then the aftershocks get smaller in magnitude,” she said.<\/p>\n

Little said the July quake was on a fault line near Seddon that had not previously been mapped. She said it was too early to determine if Friday’s quakes were on that same fault.<\/p>\n

A different fault line runs through Wellington, and many in the city fear a major disaster if it were to become active.<\/p>\n

New Zealand is part of the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire” that has regular seismic activity. A severe earthquake in the city of Christchurch in 2011 killed 185 people and destroyed much of the city’s downtown.<\/p>\n

Local authorities issued no tsunami warnings after Friday’s quakes. – AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strong earthquakes shook central New Zealand on Friday, damaging homes, destroying a bridge and sending office workers scrambling for cover in the capital. No serious injuries have been reported. A magnitude-6.5 temblor struck just after 2:30 p.m. near the small South Island town of Seddon, and at least six aftershocks were 5.0 magnitude or stronger. … Continue reading “Earthquake shakes central New Zealand, damaging homes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[5200,1774,1486,5201,5199],"class_list":["post-9231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-celia-wade-brown","tag-earthquake","tag-new-zealand","tag-pacific-ring-of-fire","tag-wellington"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/nz-earthquake-2010.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9237,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions\/9237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}