Gotta love living on the West coast, where the earth can kill you in one of three hundred and ninety-two ways.

CdtLoeb
Yep and I live at Shilshole so I hit the Tectonic Trifecta.
I’m “On the Beach”.
Building’s on fill.
The bluff behind me is sand and clay—and a notorius slide area.
Nis quall ee.  That’s one of the easy ones.

Alki and oh yeah, glad you’re back.

My position hasn’t changed. I still hate earthquakes.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/x2654530g_l.html

And the New Madrid is still here, with the Mississippi River flowing over it and dumping sediment, which will act like an amplifier to the seismic waves. Joy.

Oh, and the Mississippi did indeed flow backwards about 200 years ago to fill a crack created from a 11.5-12 quake. Really. It created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee.

The best I heard about it, though, was from a family friend who lives in Memphis. One morning, he was standing by the kitchen window, taking his first sip of coffee, when a quake hit. Then he heard a SCHLUUUUURRRRRRRP!!!! as he looked up, and saw a massive whirlpool in his pool as all the water got sucked down a massive crack in the bottom.

6.8 - now that’s big.

http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/2839343g.html

It was 50km south of Gisborne, just under 500km from here, and the house gave a big creak.

Not nice. Not nice at all.

I’m glad we don’t live in Poverty Bay…

Update: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4331258a10.html

Two buildings have collapsed…

6.8?! I see your 6.8 and raise you to - 7.8! The biggest in the world this year, the biggest since the disastrous earthquake in China, the biggest in New Zealand since the Napier Earthquake in 1931 - and no-one died, or was even hurt. So far there have been less than 300 claims for damages.

I didn’t feel a thing, but we live 800 kilometres to the north-east.

Fortunately the epicentre was under Resolution Island in remote Fiordland, with the nearest townships of Tuatapere and Te Anau 100 or so kilometres away, but it’s remarkable that we got off so lightly.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10584996

Whoah!

A magnitude 8.3 earthquake has hit just south of American Samoa. There have been deaths, and a tsunami is fanning across the South Pacific. The wave, estimated to be around 3 metres, will probably be around 1 metre when it strikes Wellington in another hour (10:50am NZDT) (almost certainly not causing any problems).

In nearby Samoa, along the southern coast of the main island of Upolu there has been widespread damage with possible loss of life.

The owner of Iliili Beach resort, Daniela Brussani, said her resort had been wiped out, with only the floor remaining.

Brussani said the earthquake was “very long and very strong.”

She said she understood that three people were missing from Saleilua, the village where the resort is situated.

As she was speaking to Stuff.co.nz she saw a policeman carrying a baby, which she feared was dead.

She said after the earthquake hit she went to the verandah at the resort and the sea had disappeared. “No water, just coral. The water go back. Very fast we understand it is a tsunami.”

She said she jumped in the car and drove away from the coast and waited. She said two very big waves were seen.

“When we go back we see all my resort is gone.”

Matthew from Iliili Resort said:

“Everything is broken. Everything is gone. The building, the restaurant ... nothing left.

“There are three people missing from the village.”

Bugger.

It’s now thought that 100 people are dead in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.

The resort we went to a few years ago, Coconuts, has been wiped out. The resort next door, Sinalei, has been equally damaged, and one of the owners has been killed.

I was upset with the Indonesian tsunami a few years ago, but this was more personal. People I met in Samoa six years ago will be dead now. As a palagi I am not really part of their country, but I still feel as though a small part of me belongs there.

All I am able to do is go into the bank tomorrow and make a donation to the Red Cross. I feel so pathetic.

A bus-stop that doesn’t exist any more…