2010 Canterbury Earthquake
Quake Details
Information about this earthquake:
| NZ Standard Time | Saturday, September 4 2010 at 4:35 am |
|---|---|
| Latitude, Longitude | 43.55°S, 172.18°E |
| Focal Depth | 10 km |
| Moment magnitude | 7.1 |
| Region | Canterbury |
| Location |
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It was the largest earthquake to affect a major urban area since the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake. The epicentre was 37 km west of Christchurch near the town of Darfield, and this event is often called the Darfield earthquake, although it is more widely known as the Canterbury earthquake. As a relatively shallow quake – about 10 km below the surface of the Canterbury Plains – it produced the strongest shaking to have been recorded in New Zealand.
No one was killed and few people sustained serious injuries, largely because of the time the quake occurred - most people were in bed and the streets were largely deserted.
The people of Christchurch would not be so lucky a few months later when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the area on Tuesday 22 February 2011. This event occurred in the middle of the working day at 12.51 p.m. Christchurch was badly damaged, 185 people were killed and several thousand injured. This time the epicentre was near Lyttelton, just 10 km south-east of Christchurch’s central business district.
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