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The Copthorne Hotel on Durham St - Source: ONE News -
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Just one day into 2012 a series of severe aftershocks have yet again rocked Christchurch.
A magnitude 5.5 early this morning left thousands of homes without power and although that has now been largely restored residents have again been shaken up.
GeoNet http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html said there were actually two tremors of the same magnitude 12 seconds apart and they were felt strongly in Christchurch. The first came at 5.45am and was centred 20 kilometres east of Christchurch at a depth of 15 kilometres.
The continuing tremors follow the two major quakes measuring 5.8 and 6 that rocked the city on the afternoon of December 23, closing the airport for hours and forcing the evacuation of Christmas shoppers from malls.
Power company Orion said the aftershock caused a transformer at its Dallington substation to trip, leaving 10,000 customers without power.
"The vibration obviously went on a bit longer than normal and it created an oil surge and tripped the transformer," operations manager Stewart Kilduff said.
And Orion is warning customers to expect more blackouts from tremors measuring more than 5.
"This will go on for a while longer, we've got to build the resilience back into our network which can take three to five years. It's a big job to get some big cables through from the other side of town to feed these transformers but our engineers are working on that already," Kilduff said.
Christchurch City Council says the aftershocks have not caused any new damage to the city and there have been no new reports of liquefaction.
Residents are reporting items tossed onto the floor by the tremor which they say was accompanied by a rumble.
"Going to have to have a long conversation with Father Christmas because these were not the presents that any of us were looking for, but it is the reality of where we are," Mayor Bob Parker said. "We know this too will pass with time, we just don't know how long."
Parker said the latest quakes have rattled residents but people need to remain calm and be assured that everything was being done to ensure key services remained operational.
"We have staff on stand-by ready to react quickly if the situation requires it. It's not a great start to a new year, but everyone is working hard to ensure we have a resilient and safe city in the future."
And the mayor said although several of the quakes have been offshore the possibility of a tsunami is "highly unlikely".
But one scientist says new fault cracks discovered indicate the quakes could go on for several years.
"The fact that these things are breaking the segments propagating to the east in faults of all different orientations is a challenge to study. It's a challenge to live through," geologist Mark Quigley said.
The city has been rocked more than 8000 times since the 7.1 September 2010 quake.
