Talk:2011 Christchurch earthquake

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Narehsahakian.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment on wikilinking to a magnitude scale

Someone wikilinked Richter scale in the "Aftershocks" section. I point out that the Local- and Moment-magnitude articles are somewhat technical. For giving a general reader a brief description of a scale, and (perhaps more importantly) comparing it with other scales, it is better to link to the appropriate section at Seismic magnitude scales. This is done automatically if you use the {{M}} template with the |link=y parameter. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Revised peak ground acceleration data

A new analysis has shown the extreme peak ground accelerations measured during the earthquake were exaggerated by loose foundations in the building housing the instruments. I've updated the infobox and the intensity part of the article, but someone with more knowledge should edit the passages that put these figures in worldwide context. Here are the references:

• Goto, Hiroyuki; Kaneko, Yoshihiro; Naguit, Muriel; Young, John (5 January 2021). "Records of Extreme Ground Accelerations during the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake Sequence Contaminated by a Nonlinear, Soil–Structure Interaction". Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. doi:10.1785/0120200337.
• "Deadly Christchurch quake's record ground-shaking lower than first thought". Stuff. 15 February 2021. Retrieved 16 February 2021.

- Gobeirne (talk) 20:39, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Lack of citation for cost

The lead section says that the earthquake costed $77 Billion dollars and neither citation provides the number $77 billion. The news article says it 'will cost over 10 billion' as it was written soon after the earthquake and the insurance magazine says it cost insurers 22 billion. The list of disasters by cost has the same problem. Please cite sources for this number or I will remove it. - Watch Atlas791 (talk) 23:01, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Do we want an article on the 2010–11 earthquakes?

I was thinking that we might want an article on the major earthquakes of 2010-2011, instead of having them all separate, but am unsure if this is a good idea. So it would list the September 2010, Boxing Day, February 2011, June 2011, (maybe 2016) earthquakes and provide a general overview and how they compare to the other earthquakes. To be clear, I am not suggesting merging the articles. An article like this may better explain the cumulative building damage that was not caused by a single earthquake (for example the Lyttelton Timeball Station being damaged in 2010, February 2011 and then having a collapse in June 2011).

I've noticed that Britannica combines the earthquakes in to one article, but they provide a much shallower overview and don't have articles for each earthquake. ―Panamitsu (talk) 00:00, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it's useful to have standalone articles as per your list, and an overarching article that can help explain the longer-term effects (building damage, EQC performance, the various organisations that have been set up in response, etc). For starters, we don't have articles for the Boxing Day earthquakes and the two that happened on 23 December 2011. Schwede66 00:57, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I've been thinking about creating a Boxing Day article for a while now and will get on it soon. It'll probably be a good idea to get those new earthquake articles done before we start on the 'overarching' article, so we have an idea on how to summarise them. ―Panamitsu (talk) 01:03, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

The Boxing Day article will be a hard one to write. I'm not sure that it would have created much attention outside of Christchurch, and it obviously happened at a time when NZ is on holiday (including its journalists). It certainly was a big affair in Christchurch, as it totally dented the confidence of the business community. They were glad for people to come back into the central city and then – bang! Much was made of the cafe in Cashel Street that had just closed where a brick wall flattened a couple of tables that had been occupied all morning. Unfortunately, it's too long ago for The Press to still be online. Maybe The Wikipedia Library can help unearth some articles. Schwede66 01:16, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a re-arrangement would be worthwhile. Due to the passage of time something reasonably objective and in context could be set up. My thoughts, which I think agrees with yours is there should be individual articles on 4 Sept 2010 and 14 Feb 2011 but the rest should be in an overall article on the Canterbury earthquake sequence 2010-2016. I think the Kaikoura earthquake is separate. There were a couple of smaller ones in the sequence such as 23 Dec but I don't think they had notabolity enough of their own to warrant separate articles. In case it isn't obvious, the earthquakes had a significant social effect that outsiders will not be aware of, that revolved mainly around insurance - insurance companies in the centre and mainly EQC in the suburbs. Although its a generalisation, the city centre had brick buildings owned by businesses that were rebuilt because they suffered differently from the suburbs with wooden buildings where people lived that were repaired. Behind all of this was the govt's role trying keep existing insurers away from bankrupcy and to prevent international re-insurers from abandoning NZ as too great a risk. There is even scope for an article about the ground on which Christchurch was, and still is, built, and its effect on EQC claims and the prefered location of a rebuilt Christchchurch - inland on to more stable ground. In some ways I think 'the earthquake sequence' itself can be broken down into many separate articles, not relating directly to the earthquakes. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 03:15, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I've gathered 22 sources (you were right, it was a pain) at Draft:December 2010 Canterbury earthquake if anyone also wants to work on the Boxing Day article. Most sources I could find are from a few days after the event and there are a couple of later reports. I'm not sure if it meets WP:SUSTAINED as while there is no recent in-depth coverage of this earthquake, it is often mentioned as "one of the four major earthquakes". ―Panamitsu (talk) 09:13, 9 August 2024 (UTC)