Environment Minister Nick Smith said the earthquake had released energy equivalent to 1000 Hiroshima atomic bombs.
"Engineers measure earthquakes by ground horizontal acceleration levels because it is these which actually cause damage to buildings," he said.
"The Canterbury earthquake recorded accelerations of 1.26 times gravity - it's like tipping up a building like this Parliament on its end and then putting it back again."
Dr Smith said those levels were the highest recorded in New Zealand and only very few of that size had been recorded globally.
Yeah, so that's pretty crazy. You know what else is crazy? There have been 556 aftershocks since last Saturday. You can follow along here or here.
Thankfully, they're slowing down. These graphs show the aftershocks from the last 24 hours (top) and since The Big One (bottom):
(a bigger version of this is here)
This is so insane. I am glad you seem to be weathering it well - red wine and chocolate heal almost any wound I believe! Hope this ends soon so things can just get back to normal - or maybe its fun to just be sort of camping out on planet shaky? I could see its appeal. We are still coming to visit at some point - earthquakes cannot keep us from good friends. Pleeaazz Bring it on earth! take care lovies
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