They had a detailed co-ordinated response plan for the first seven days following a severe Alpine Fault.ĪF8 Project Chair Brian Paton said they had been preparing for a magnitude 8 quake all along, but what had changed was the urgency. The government had prepared a response team called Project AF8 (Alpine Fault Magnitude 8), which was a collaboration between the Wellington Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups and their partner organisations. Photo: Facebook / Greymouth i-SITE Government response A large earthquake on the Alpine Fault could also create major damage to roads and bridges in the region. This bridge to Arthur's Pass collapsed after heavy rainfall lashed the West Coast in 2018. So it's all those things we've been looking at". We've got some funding from the PGF (Provincial Growth Fund) which we are (using) to bring our port infrastructure up to a better level. I think we really need to be seriously looking at those sorts of things. "If there is a big emergency on the West Coast, we still haven't really made a lot of ground due to funding in those areas. Grey District mayor Tania Gibson said the report was not a surprise, but could prompt a funding boost to help them better prepare. Other parts of the West Coast could also be hit hard by a major Alpine Fault earthquake, and potentially be cut off for weeks or even months. "The council issued permits for a number of years to build on the fault line." The risk for the wider West Coast "People have invested heavy amounts of money, they can't afford to just walk away, they have mortgages etcetera on those buildings. They were also reviewing their Franz Josef site.įranz Josef hotelier Logan Skinner said it couldn't just be left up to local councils to relocate emergency services and buildings positioned on top of the Alpine Fault. In the event of an incident near Franz Josef, Fire and Emergency would work closely with local Civil Defence and the National Emergency Agency in a coordinated response.Ī Fire and Emergency spokesperson said specialist equipment was stored in Greymouth to ensure they could respond immediately while waiting for specialist Urban Search and Rescue team members from elsewhere in the country. "This is a time to actually do something." If this report does anything it raises the need to act a little bit faster than councils and government departments seem to be able to achieve. "We've written to them all, and we've been working on it for some time. We've got to move the hall, got to move the DOC accommodation that's there. The fire station, police station and the hall where people gather during emergencies were all on or very close to the fault. Parts of Franz Josef could disappear into eight-metre wide crevasses, the report warned.Įven before this research, Westland District Council had been pushing for years for some of the key services that sit directly on the fault line in Franz Josef to be moved - but with little progress, Mayor Bruce Smith said. Damaging quake could disable essential Franz Josef services The most at risk areas are Franz Josef, West Coast, then the rest of the South Island. It also found an 82 percent chance of a quake greater than magnitude 8.
The study concluded there was a 75 percent chance of a major Alpine Fault earthquake in the next 50 years, compared to earlier estimates that the likelihood was about 30 percent. The 850km Alpine Fault runs up the western side of the South Island between Milford Sound and Marlborough, and poses one of the biggest natural threats to New Zealand. The study from Victoria University suggested a big quake could block South Island highways in more than 120 places, leave 10,000 people cut off, and cost the economy about $10 billion.
0 kommentar(er)
