ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to discuss 2010-2011 New Zealand earthquakes and the aftershocks, geological reasons of earthquake and various terminologies related to earthquake. The article also describes the Geology of New Zealand and how the geographical location makes the country Vulnerable to such disasters. Majorly the article discuss, the 2010 Canterbury earthquake and 2011 Christchurch earthquake, its Impact on Social and Economic structures of the country and its impact on the Ecology and its overall effect. In this article the Christchurch earthquake has been considered as a aftershock to the main event, which was the Canterbury earthquake but there is an argument whether the Christchurch earthquake was a aftershock of main
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On Mercalli intensity scale the quake was measured X (extreme). The main shock caused widespread damage and several power outages, particularly in the city of Christchurch. Though there was no loss to life, two people were severely injured. A foreshock was also felt 5 seconds before the main quake. Since the epicentre of the quake was on land no Tsunami occurred. The event was followed by aftershocks for about 17 months.
One of the major and devastating aftershock was Christchurch earthquake. At 12.51 pm NZDT on 22 February 2011 an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 again struck the Canterbury region of South island, New Zealand, but this time the earthquake was centred 2 kilometres west of the port town of Lyttelton and 10 kilometres south-east of the centre of Christchurch, New Zealand's second most populous city. The earthquake caused widespread damage to the life and ecology. The quake also caused significant damage to the city’s infrastructure, which already had been weakened by the earlier quakes in previous months. 185 people were killed in the disaster and more were severely injured. This event was again followed by large aftershocks on 11 June 2011 and 23 December 2011 causing considerable additional