Magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocks Canterbury

The earthquake struck at 4.35 a.m. on Saturday 4 September and was felt by many people in the South Island and the southern North Island. There was considerable damage in central Canterbury, especially in Christchurch, but no loss of life.

It was the largest earthquake to affect a major urban area since the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake. As the epicentre was 37 km west of Christchurch near the town of Darfield, this event is often called the Darfield earthquake, although it is more widely known as the Canterbury earthquake. As a relatively shallow quake – about 10 km below the surface of the Canterbury Plains – it produced the strongest shaking to have been recorded in New Zealand.

The fact that no one was killed and few people sustained serious injuries was due largely to the time the quake occurred, with most people in bed and the streets largely deserted.

The people of Christchurch would not be so lucky a few months later when a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the area on Tuesday 22 February 2011. This event occurred in the middle of the working day at 12.51 p.m. Christchurch was badly damaged, 185 people were killed and several thousand injured. This time the epicentre was near Lyttelton, just 10 km south-east of Christchurch’s central business district.

Image: car under rubble in central Christchurch, by Ross Becker. See more of his images of the September earthquake