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Don't forget about the Christchurch earthquake: Lessons learned from this disaster

Michael W. Hamburger·Walter D. Mooney
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Abstract

In the aftermath of the devastating magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami that struck the Tohoku region of Japan on March 11, attention quickly turned away from a much smaller, but also highly destructive earthquake that struck the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, just a few weeks earlier, on Feb. 22. Both events are stark reminders of human vulnerability to natural disasters and provide a harsh reality check: Even technologically advanced countries with modern building codes are not immune from earthquake disasters. The Christchurch earthquake carried an additional message: Urban devastation can be triggered even by moderate-sized earthquakes.

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90° N90° S · 180° W ← longitude → 180° E
Source-reported bounding extent: -43.6355° to -43.3908° latitude; 172.3892° to 172.8089° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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Michael W. Hamburger, Walter D. Mooney. 2011. Don't forget about the Christchurch earthquake: Lessons learned from this disaster. https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70042749

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