A Dark Day for Christchurch

People trapped under crumbled buildings, dozens missing and dead bodies just littering the streets. These are just some of the major cases we’ve heard of since the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that hit Christchurch on Tuesday the 22nd at around about 12:51pm-most people were on their lunch break at the time.

This has been recorded as New Zealand’s worst natural disaster since 1931 when an earthquake measuring 7.8 hit the North Island city of Napier and destroyed most of it but also killed 256 people. The death toll for the 6.3 quake is 100+ and rising, its estimated to reach 200.

Many things were lost in this natural disaster including houses. It has been a massive struggle to collect water as their water system was dismantled and it has been a big challenge to find good accommodation and shelter. There has been a report that a lady has been very kind and had been able to give food to around 100 people.

Christchurch was home to many historic buildings, one of them being the famous Christchurch Cathedral. One of the Cathedrals towers were destroyed due to the devastating quake and about 22 people are believed to be trapped in that area of the Cathedral.

People from all around the world have sent their condolences even some very famous people like Barack Obama (the President of the United States) and the Queen of England. Some people have even come from places like Japan, Australia and America to help out.

My school has decided that they we will fundraise some money and then send some it down to Christchurch to help them buy some supplies and stuff that they desperately need. I pray that Christchurch will once again be able to move on from this, as they did in the 2010 earthquake and for the families that have lost their loved ones.

If you would like to see some shots of Christchurch before and after the earthquake, you can go to this website http://www.morefm.co.nz/Home/ChristchurchEarthquakeBeforeandAfterPhotos/tabid/2115/Default.aspx

Hamish Campbell a Very Clever Person

It was on the morning of the 5th of August that we had another one of those special video conferences.  This time our special video conference was with a famous paleontologist and Geologist who's name was Hamish Campbell.

We have had a video conference with him before but that conference was based on chatting about our topic from last term which was about dinosaurs.  This time our chat was about the Fiordland earthquake.  Hamish explained to us a few interesting facts about earthquakes and about the earthquake that happened in Fiordland.  Some of the facts that he shared with us were very hard to understand because we aren't experts on earthquakes (like Hamish), but luckily Hamish is a talented person who can take difficult words and make them sound easier to understand for children like us.  

Anyway back to the facts.  He told us that there are 2 different plates covering New Zealand called "the Australian plates" (which is on the left  side of the New Zealand) and the other set of plates called "the Pacific plates" (which is obviously  on the right side of new Zealand.) Another fact was that the Fiordland earthquake was named Dusky Sound and it measured up 7.6m on the Richter scale, it is said to be the largest earthquake in the world since the 2nd largest one 80 years ago.  He also said that there was once an earthquake that hit a village in China called Tangshan and lasted for 15 seconds, unfortunately it only lasted a vast amount of seconds but killed over 200,000 people.  It was a very sad tragedy.   

What is also very sad is that Hamish told us that Joan Wiffen died.  If you don't know who Joan Wiffien is well, she was the first person in New Zealand to find a fossilized part of a dinosaur. She is famous to the extension group because we did research on her when we were learning about dinosaurs.  She is also well known to the rest of New Zealand because before she found the fossilized part of the dinosaur, it was thought that no species of the dinosaur had ever stomped around on the land we now know as Aotearoa-New Zealand.  Thanks to her we now know that dinosaurs stomped around in our part of the land.

And thanks to Hamish Campbell, Diana-Grace and Te Papa museum for setting up another awesome video conference.  Not most kids get to talk to a famous Geologist and paleontologist!!