Holy crap!!

[twoiron]

Big quake pushes NZ closer to Australia

A MASSIVE 7.8 magnitude earthquake last week has moved the south of New Zealand closer to Australia, scientists said yesterday.

With the countries separated by the 2250-kilometre-wide Tasman Sea, the 30-centimetre closing of the gap in New Zealand's south-west won't make much difference.

But earthquake scientist Ken Gledhill, of GNS Science, said the shift illustrated the huge force of the tremor, the biggest in the world so far this year.

"Basically, New Zealand just got a little bit bigger, is another way to think about it," Dr Gledhill said. While the south-west of the South Island moved about 30 centimetres closer to Australia, the east coast moved only 1 centimetre westwards, he said.

The biggest quake in New Zealand in 78 years caused only slight damage to buildings and property when it struck the remote south-west Fiordland region of the South Island last Thursday.

A small tsunami was generated by the earthquake, with a tide gauge on the west coast of New Zealand recording a wave of one metre. "For a very large earthquake, although it was very widely felt, there were very few areas that were severely shaken," Dr Gledhill said.

AFP

[dystopia]

yikes!  I'm surprised a 7.8 earthquake didn't cause more damage.

[gleek]

How do they know that it wasn't Australia that moved closer to NZ?

[geo1]

How do they know that it wasn't Australia that moved closer to NZ?

GPS???

[stroh]

That's gotta suck for two groups of people that hate each other to begin with.