Earthquake —Stuff tells you what to do #EQNZ

Stuff (Fairfax): Large quake rocks central New Zealand
Last updated 20:48 21/07/2013
A severe magnitude 6.5 earthquake has hit central New Zealand this evening, damaging buildings, cutting power, trapping people in lifts and injuring at least two people.
GeoNet said it was centred in the Cook Strait, 20 kilometres east of Seddon at a depth of 17 kilometres. It struck at 5.09pm.
The Pacific Tsunami Centre in Hawaii said the quake did not generate a tsunami, but a number of smaller quakes have struck since – the latest, a 4.4 magnitude 25km east of Seddon at 8.27pm, followed closely by a 5.1 magnitude near Hanmer Springs.
The 6.5 magnitude quake was likely linked to a fault in the Cook Strait capable of generating far more severe shaking, GNS Science said.
If there were a sequence of events, as in Canterbury, EQC would have up to $6.5bn in cover. A spokesman for EQC minister Gerry Brownlee said EQC had “ample to cover any future event.”
Read more

(via Stuff)
What to do in an earthquake | Photos | Video: Powerful quake hits | What you need to know | Video: As the quake hit | Regional round up | Map: Recent quakes

Wellington Maritime Police senior launch master Barry Hart said a piece of previously reclaimed land along the industrial part of the waterfront had subsided into the sea, taking with it at least one shipping container. “The land has actually subsided at least a couple of metres… into the sea. One shipping container has gone into the water.”

● 3 News
More quakes shake North Island
Civil Defence: What to do after an earthquake

What you need to know:
• Magnitude 6.5 quake struck around 5:09pm Sunday
• Centred 20km east of Seddon, 17km deep
• GeoNet lists quake’s intensity as “severe”
• 4 injured in series of aftershocks
• Mercure on Willis St evacuated, believed to be slumping
• Featherston, Wakefield, Bolton, Willis and Webb streets closed
• All KiwiRail services suspended
• Wellington workers advised not to travel to work until at least midday Monday
• Victoria Uni, Whitireia polytech both closed until at least Tuesday

● ONE News
At least one injured as severe quake strikes
Wellington’s emergency offices have been activated and USAR is on standby after a powerful earthquake shook central NZ.

GeoNet Quakes Map 21.7.13 (click on link for updates)

#eqnz
As Wellington assesses itself and keeps people out of the CBD for safety reasons according to its Civil Defence Plan now in force following today’s significant earthquakes and tremors, readers have been hitting these links . . .

[older posts]
27.6.11 You keep asking: does Dunedin get earthquakes?
9.3.11 Dunedin earthquake proneness
4.9.10 Earthquake

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

RMA and Key’s right-wing slashers

BACKWARD STEP: Our environment is at risk if the Resource Management act is watered down.

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 21/07/2013
Gutting the RMA – it’s time to be concerned
By Anton Oliver
Source: Sunday Star-Times
OPINION | The Resource Management Act (RMA) has sadly become a much maligned and misunderstood piece of legislation: a kind of universal public punching bag – if mentioned in conversation, it is almost obligatory to put the slipper in. To most Kiwis it represents bureaucracy and inefficiency – pen-pushing do-gooders and paper shufflers who engage us in excessively long and costly processes that get in the way of us Kiwis doing stuff.
In fact the RMA – passed in 1991 – was a means of rectifying mistakes and providing at least some environmental and social integrity to development and planning process. It was recognised by legal minds to be a world-leading piece of legislation. It protected our environment and our economy based on the premise of sustainable resource management. What’s more, it was politically robust in that it received the blessing of both major parties.
It also gave New Zealanders a chance to be heard and it facilitated local decisions made by local people. While the country’s environmental indicators such as water quality and biodiversity loss have still gone backwards – the RMA has stemmed what would otherwise have been fatal haemorrhaging.
Similarly, the RMA has protected a set of fundamental Kiwi values: the notion of fairness and equity in regard to everyone having a right to their say; industry and other activities being required to take responsibility for avoiding, remedying or mitigating adverse environmental impacts; and developments being required to have regard to effects on such things as recreation, scenic values, private property rights, and the public’s access to rivers, lakes and beaches.
That’s all about to change.
The Government plans to alter the Act to give greater weight to economic development over environmental considerations, granting to itself the right to veto any issue. You don’t have to be legal-minded to see the impact of subtle word changes. While the consideration for the “benefits” of a project remains, gone are any references to the “costs”, making a cost-benefit analysis redundant because environmental “cost” is out of the equation.
Gone, too, are the words: “maintenance and enhancement of amenity values”. That’s basically any recreational activity – walking, running, swimming, fishing, kayaking. Who likes doing that stuff anyway? Thankfully the “importance and value of historic heritage” stays. But its cobber, “protection from inappropriate subdivision and development” gets the boot – making the first clause meaningless. And my personal favourite, “maintenance and enhancement of the quality of the environment” has been politely asked to leave. Clearly such an unruly clause has no place in a legal act that’s trying to protect the environment.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, has a different interpretation. She thinks the changes “muddy the overwhelming focus of the RMA, to protect the environment, and risk turning it into an Economic Development Act”. Similarly alarmed, the architect of the RMA, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, concludes: “The [proposed changes] will significantly and seriously weaken the ability of the RMA to protect the natural environment and its recreational enjoyment by all New Zealanders.”

The changes also grant considerable new powers to central government, giving it the ability to take individual consent decisions away from local councils and place them in a new national body. The changes go further still, by allowing government the right to insert provisions in local council plans without any consultation.
Read more

● Former All Black Anton Oliver is an ambassador for Water Conservation Order NZ.

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Related Posts and Comments:
21.4.13 *fashionable* Heritage Dunedin and the RMA holocaust
17.3.13 RMA Bill: Public meeting 21 March
6.7.12 Recommended changes to RMA explode environmental protection

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: stuff.co.nz – Anton Oliver