Earthquake

North of Kaikoura

January 12, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On Sunday after church, we drove north of Kaikoura, for the first time since the 7.8 earthquake 14 months ago. We have gotten used to seeing the new look of the cliff faces to the south of Kaikoura, but to see the ones to the north was incredible. It was shocking and awe-inspiring, all over again, to see the devastation wrought in that minute or two of shaking. We have certainly learned a lot about geology and plate tectonics and natural disasters in the past year.

This is just past Ohau Point, where the worst slip happened during the quake. We used to go to this spot to watch baby seals play in a pool at the base of a waterfall here. According to someone who walked back in there soon after the quake, the waterfall still exists but the pool has been filled in. Here are before-and-after pictures of the same hillside.

This is approximately the place where three cows were stranded on top of an island of soil when the hillside around them fell away.The owners of this farm have lost a lot of their land, and because the Clarence River has changed course, if it floods they are in danger of losing their home and all their farm buildings.

The Clarence River in flood from rain in the High Country.

Here is a picture I took a number of years ago of the bridge above.

We were fascinated to see the evidence of seafloor uplift along the coast. All the white rocks used to be permanently underwater; the old low-tide line used to be at the top of the white line.

This was a spot we were especially interested in. We saw pictures immediately after the quake of a fault line at Waipapa Bay, where the rock looked like it had been sliced with a knife and uplifted 6-8 meters. We believe this is the spot.

More evidence of the seabed uplifting.

A new road/bridge was built out over the seabed at Iron Gate. This bridge was completed after just 14 weeks! The road construction crews were putting in very long hours so the road could be opened before Christmas.

The waves were quite high on Sunday afternoon when we went through. It was getting near low tide then, but when we drove to Kaikoura in the morning it had been high tide, and there was seawater on the road in places from waves breaking at the edge of the cliff. During the next high tide, during the night, waves washed some of the 5-ton blocks of concrete from the seawalls completely across the road! As a result, the road was closed for the morning on Monday while the blocks were put back in place.

Correction—Back to Kaikoura

June 24, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I’m sorry about the missing picture from the post about going to Kaikoura for the first time in a couple of months. I mentioned a broken shipping container, but forgot to add in the picture; that particular photo came from Mr. Diligence’s memory card and I got it from him later. So, here it is.

Back to Kaikoura!

June 15, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

The highway to Kaikoura was closed just before Easter, when we had two back-to-back cyclones. The cliffs that were already weakened from the earthquake did some more slipping, and a hillside that hadn’t moved before came down. We had about given up hope of getting to church in Kaikoura before leaving on our trip to America, so we were quite happy to learn that the road was to be opened for a week and a half over our last weekend in New Zealand! It was wonderful to get to see our friends there again, after missing 10 Sundays there.

We had to stop at a light near Barney’s Rock, which gave us a good look at a slip that happened during the earthquake in November.

This hillside slipped more in April.

During one of the cyclones, this hillside slipped so much more that the containers, which are filled with rocks, chained together, and bolted to the cliff, were being pushed out to sea. Five of the containers were unhooked and removed so they wouldn’t be lost.

The new slip. They built a new one-lane road over the seabed for temporary traffic.

We were impressed with the size of the boulder that obviously hit this container. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the way when it came down!

Walk Around the Kaikoura Peninsula

February 20, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We had visitors from America last week, so on Sunday after church we took them to the Peninsula and walked around from the carpark at Point Kean (the north side) at sea level to South Bay. Before the earthquake, we had to time such a walk carefully to coincide with low tide—no more. The tide was at least halfway in, maybe more, when we finished our walk, and we were still high and dry.

Starting out from Point Kean—not too different from before. When you look closely, though, there is no life in the cracks, as there used to be, and the rocks are dry and dusty.

A seal, seagulls, and a shag.

Immature seagulls—we inadvertently walked through a nesting ground, although there were no eggs or tiny babies. The young are almost as big as their parents now.

Climbing this rock—irresistible!

Mr. Inventor with Little Miss on his shoulders, Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie

There were a lot more rocks laying at the base of the cliffs than there were last time we did this walk. This one had split open with a very interesting pattern in it. Mr. Sweetie for scale!

This erect-crested penguin is visiting Kaikoura at the moment. Normally, only very small Little Blue Penguins live there. What a treat!

At the toilets at South Bay, the end of our walk. Mr. Inventor must have had sore feet! He walked all that way, over rocks of all shapes and sizes and sharpnesses, barefoot!

Mr. Diligence and Little Miss playing between the pillars.

Kaikoura Peninsula—High Tide After the Earthquake

February 6, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On our second trip to Kaikoura after the earthquake, the second Sunday of January, we went to the Peninsula to see what it looked like at high tide.

Here is the same spot at high tide several years ago:

We saw this on the way to church. The earthquake caused the side of the road to slump down.

After leaving Kaikoura, as we started driving along the coast we saw this fresh slip, with the digger just starting to clean it up. We got through—but the road closed early that night. (Part of the highway to the south of Kaikoura, the part that was damaged the worst by the quake, is closed every night from 8pm till 6am the next morning.)

This spot looks like an entire section of a hill dropped down, creating a new gully.

The Oaro overbridge—the bridge with which the highway crosses over the railroad—suffered a lot of damage in the quake. We stopped to have a close look.

At both ends of the bridge, the road dropped about a meter. Apparently, the gravel used for fill under the ends jiggled away during the earthquake. Most of the bridges around dropped at both ends, but most only a few inches. This, of course, is unusable; you have to detour around this spot.

The Road to Kaikoura on New Year’s Day

January 18, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We had not been to church in Kaikoura since the earthquake, on November 14, so it was an exciting day when we were finally able to go on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, I had a severe migraine, so had to stay home, but the rest of the family went. Esther took my camera and got a lot of pictures of the condition of the road. It’s much better than it was immediately after the quake! There has been an enormous amount of work done already. Compared to what it used to be, though, the roads are pretty rough. I couldn’t believe the way the guardrails were twisted. In this first picture, though you can’t see it very well, a bridge on the main highway is completely gone. Traffic has been rerouted around a narrow back road.

See the new hill crossing the tracks and the road?

Many hillsides slid away.

Because the seafloor rose, low tide is much lower than it used to be.

Obviously, this bridge is not safe to drive on!

First Trip to Kaikoura Since the Earthquake

January 7, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s already been three weeks since Mr. Inventor went to Kaikoura with a couple of men from Cheviot. They took a load of food that had been donated. At that time, the only way into Kaikoura was the Inland Route from Waiau, and you could only go in convoy. A convoy departed from Waiau at 8:00 am to go to Kaikoura, and another left Kaikoura at 3:00 pm to go back. You had to sign up online a day or two ahead, and then wait for a text message late the evening before going, to confirm that the road would be open in the morning. Only a few days later, all restrictions on that road ended and it was open for two-way traffic. A week after Mr. Inventor’s trip, Highway One, the coastal route, was opened for daytime traffic. These pictures are from Mr. Inventor’s trip on the 15th of December, on the Inland Road in convoy.

There were a lot of spectacular slips into the Conway River.

Unloading the food in Kaikoura.

A Navy ship was anchored offshore in Kaikoura.

The banks of Lyell Creek sank; apparently all houses along it have been red-stickered, meaning they are not to be used. Thankfully, our friend who lives along this lane is just far enough away that her house is fine.

Lots of twisted guard rails.

Cracks across the hillside.

The convoy forming to leave Kaikoura in the afternoon. Mr. Inventor rode in the truck at the back of the line.

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the bridge on the left is twisted one direction at one end and the other direction at the other end. The bridge to the right is a new one built since the quake to allow traffic to go through.

This is a bridge just south of Kaikoura. Again, it’s hard to tell in the picture, but the road drops six or eight inches coming off the bridge.

Another view of the twisted bridge with a temporary bridge beside it.

Earthquake!

November 15, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

My apologies to those who read this as well as my weekly newsletter; I decided to copy and paste, to save time. We’ve had quite the shaky day. Last night when we were about to go to bed, the cat was acting very strange. He was grabbing us and biting for no apparent reason, and being extremely playful. In fact, Gayle yelled at him from his bed to stop what he was doing! Mr. Inventor had given him a golf ball to distract him from biting, and Leif was playing with the ball in the hallway outside our door. Gayle thought it was one of the boys and got quite irritated when he wouldn’t quit! Another strange thing last night was that I got a terrible stress headache right after going to bed. It got so bad that at midnight I got up and took aspirin, then used the toilet, got a drink and went back to bed.

Immediately after I went to bed, I heard a roaring outside. I thought, “That’s an awfully strong wind. Strange that it’s coming up so fast.” Then, the house started rocking–ah, an earthquake. Then it got stronger, and stronger, and stronger, and then added an up-and-down motion to the rocking and rolling motions. Things started crashing in the house, and it seemed to take forever to quiet down. After about two minutes it finally settled down, although for two hours there was nearly constant shaking at some level.

I found my headlamp in my purse and we started through the house to assess the damage. The jars of jam in the hallway had fallen off the shelves, although only a couple had broken. The kitchen was a shambles; a stack of my nicest, biggest crockery serving bowls fell off the shelf and shattered, and most of the teacups fell off their hooks. The fridge in the laundry room came open and a 5-liter jar of milk broke. Then, we went out to the garage where we keep the jars of fruit, etc. What a mess! Gayle got a shovel and started scooping out the broken jars. He filled a wheelbarrow. We took all the good jars off the shelves and set them on the floor.

We spent about an hour cleaning up, then went back to bed. About that time, the neighbors came over to tell us there was a tsunami warning. Thankfully, that didn’t end up being a problem! The shaking was still nearly constant, with occasionally a big shock. We could hear a lot of them coming, with a dull roar. Gayle got up around 3:30 as usual; sometime after that I was finally able to sleep a little. All the children who usually sleep outside had moved into the house. When something like that happens, they like to be close to the family!

The power came on soon after I got up, about 6:30. We were able to get online after a little while, and learned that it had been a 7.5 quake, which started about 20-30 miles from us and triggered one in Kaikoura. Kaikoura was taking a real pounding; they had had about 3 aftershocks already of magnitude 6 or so, and were cut off from everyone else. The power went off again at 7:00, and didn’t come back till 11:30. Around 10:30, we went to Cheviot to get chicken feed. The feed store was, I believe, the only business open in town. They couldn’t ring up the sale, since the power was out, so they wrote it up in their book and I’ll go in and pay another time. We saw a digger heading north, to start cleaning up the road, but there was a road block preventing anyone else from going north. The road to Kaikoura has been wiped out so badly it will be weeks, if not months, till we go there again.

Mr. Inventor’s baby turkeys and ducks fared pretty well. We were worried about them in the night, as they’re so little they need their heat light still. Gayle and Mr. Inventor rigged up a battery-powered light in the night, but one turkey had already died. When the power came back on, Mr. Inventor turned on the electric lights; only one duckling had died in the meantime. Later, he gave the turkeys a couple of buckets of hot water to cuddle up to. They all did well, including two new ones that hatched during the night!

Mr. Inventor had to work on the water tank this morning. After the quake, we had water in the hot water taps in the house, but not the cold water taps. This morning he looked into the problem and figured out that there was too much debris in the tap coming out of the tank. He hooked up a hose to it and used the foot pump to blow it out.

We learned, sometime today, what likely caused that headache I had last night. There was a light seen over Wellington during the quake; it was also seen during the Christchurch quakes a few years ago. Apparently, electricity builds up in the earth before a quake, and then releases into the air. I’m guessing I felt the effects of that, and so did the cat.

We’ve felt aftershocks off and on all day. Most were minor, but two were strong enough that we went outside. The worst was at 1:30. We were all in the kitchen, and headed out to the lawn. I was losing my balance, so sat down, and everyone else followed suit. We could feel the ground rolling under us, and hear the water splashing from end to end of the underground cistern. It had done that during the night, too, and a river came out a crack in one end and flowed across the yard. Also, during the night, the septic tank had sloshed enough that the smell came out of the cracks in the top and it smelled pretty bad for awhile.

Little Miss slept through all the excitement last night (she was the only one who did). When she got up this morning, she saw the jam jars on the floor in the hallway. She turned to me, and pointing to the jars, said, “Boys. Mess.” She’s loved seeing the helicopters who have been refueling across the road from us all day while they help with rescue and relief in Kaikoura. She gets all excited about the “coppers!” The boys have spent most of the day over there watching the choppers land and take off. They have counted about 40 that landed, although a lot of them were repeats. Some came five or six times.