A number of earthquakes have shaken Wellington and the top of the South Island. The first big earthquake was 5.7 on the Richter scale, just after 9am on Friday morning. The centre was near a small town, Seddon, in the South Island about 50km across Cook Strait to Wellington. There were a number of small shakes after that but last night, just after 5pm, a 6.5 earthquake, again centred in Seddon, shook parts of Wellington. It was 17km deep.
Seddon has a population of 500 people. The town has some damage and many worried people. Wellington has a population of 400,000 although many more people commute into the city every weekday. Wellington also has some earthquake damage, mostly broken glass and parts of the sea wall fell into the harbour. A lot of this land was reclaimed land and it is quite soft. The road and rail north are built on reclaimed land. Railways were closed this morning while lines, bridges and tunnels were checked. Parts of the central city were also closed this morning until workers could be sure it was safe to come to work.
Scientists say that these earthquakes could continue ‘for some time’ but they don’t know if a bigger one is possible. Wellington is on a major fault line between the Australian and Pacific Plates.
Listen to March 13th 2011 to hear some earthquake facts or type ‘earthquake’ in the search box.
Vocabulary
• commute – travel some distance to work every day
• reclaimed land – man-made land from rock etc thrown in the sea