Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Extent of shaking, North Canterbury earthquake, 1 September 1888

Early this morning at 4.35am there was a magnitude 7.1 earthquake 30 kilometres west of Christchurch. Pictures show scenes of serious damage to buildings and cars, but amazingly only two cases of serious injuries have been reported so far.

The central city has been closed due to rubble – about 5% of buildings there have been damaged. Power is out to most of the city.

There’s lots of discussion and information on the internet, including on social media sites such as Twitter (http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23christchurch). Some other useful links are:

• Geonet’s earthquake location map: http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3366146g-maps.html
• Civil Defence: http://www.civildefence.govt.nz/memwebsite.nsf
• A short video on YouTube showing the earthquake in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpjAFSdD5zM
• The Herald’s timeline of events: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10671050
• Stuff’s coverage: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4094986/State-of-emergency-after-7-1-quake-hits-Christchurch

Christchurch is not known for earthquakes - when people think of earthquake-prone cities in New Zealand they tend to think of Wellington. But earthquakes have affected Christchurch before, including the magnitude 7.0–7.3 quake in North Canterbury, on 1 September 1888.

For a bit of history, you can find out about the most damaging New Zealand earthquakes from our Historic earthquakes entry:

Wairarapa – 23 January 1855 – magnitude 8.2

The most powerful ever recorded in New Zealand – rocked the southern part of the North Island and altered the landscape of the Wellington region. Fatality estimates ranged from 5 to 9.

Marlborough – 16 October 1848 – magnitude 7.5

Although centred in the Awatere valley in the Marlborough the quake caused substantial damage in the Wellington area, and was felt from Hawke’s Bay to Canterbury.

North Canterbury – 1 September 1888 – magnitude 7.0–7.3

Struck North Canterbury, about 100 kilometres north-west of Christchurch. Felt from New Plymouth to Invercargill, the quake caused damage to buildings over a wide area, including Christchurch.

Arthur’s Pass – 9 March 1929 – magnitude 7.1

Shook the mountain region near Arthur’s Pass for four minutes. Railway lines were damaged and slips closed the highway to the West Coast for several months.

Napier – 3 February 1931– magnitude 7.8

New Zealand’s deadliest earthquake devastated Napier and Hastings. At least 256 people died – 161 in Napier, 93 in Hastings, and 2 in Wairoa. Many thousands more required medical treatment.

Wairarapa – 24 June 1942 – magnitude 7.8 and  2 August 1942 – magnitude 6.8

Two powerful earthquakes caused substantial damage to many towns in the Wairarapa, and in Wellington.

Īnangahua Junction – 24 May 1968 – magnitude 7.1

The earthquake centred near Īnangahua Junction, a small community 40 kilometres east of Westport. Six people died.

Edgecumbe – 2 March 1987 – magnitude 5.2

Centred north of Edgecumbe. It caused widespread damage and injured several people.

Fiordland – 15 July 2009 – magnitude 7.8

The largest since 1942 it caused widespread shaking and some damage in Southland. If such a powerful quake occurred near Wellington it is likely that hundreds or thousands of people would die.

Last night’s earthquake was felt across most of the South Island, and as far north as Palmerston North. Did you feel it? Where were you?

The other day we received a note from Shannon Murphy, managing editor of Guampedia, which is the online encyclopedia for Guam. Guam is the largest of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. It is a territory of the United States, with 162,000 people at the last census. Shannon’s note to us was so interesting that I suggested that she add it as a comment on one of our maps, and also invited her, as a fellow encyclopedist, to tell us a little more about Guampedia.  So this is her response.

A community project

Guampedia, Guam’s Online Encyclopedia, is a community project to create a comprehensive online encyclopedic resource about the history, culture and contemporary issues of Guam.

Guampedia Foundation, Inc. is an independent non-profit organisation. The creation of Guampedia was funded through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Guam Preservation Trust, the Bank of Guam, the US Department of the Interior, Gannett Foundation, Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency and other sources. The project was founded by the Guam Humanities Council in 2002. In 2009 a new non-profit organisation, Guampedia Foundation, Inc. was incorporated and Guampedia became independent of the council.

Guampedia is being developed with the co-operation of the University of Guam under the Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center and many other community institutions and organisations, including the Department of Chamorro Affairs, the Guam Museum, the Guam Public Library, the Guam Department of Parks and Recreation’s Division of Historic Resources, the Archdiocese of Agana and Micronesian Seminar.

Through peer-reviewed entries and accompanying media, Guampedia provides an important educational and informational resource for Guam teachers and schoolchildren, for Chamorros living away from Guam, for visitors to our island, and for those who want a richer understanding of our island and its people.

Guampedia was launched in April 2008 with the first 350 entries and, two years later, now has 640 entries. More than 100 people have been a part of this project to date, doing research, writing, peer reviewing, fact checking or copy editing the Guampedia entries and media. Another 600 entries are planned and will be added as they are completed. A new section on the history of the dishes on our fiesta tables was just published. A section on the ancient Chamorros is currently being developed and will be published by the first of next year.

Guampedia will always be an ongoing and dynamic project that will be updated and added to regularly as events unfold and technology allows.

Our Staff
Managing editor: Shannon Murphy
Content editor: Tanya M. Champaco Mendiola
Media editor: Nathalie Pereda

All the other work done for Guampedia is done by contracted researchers and writers, photographers, artists, and videographers.

As a side note: when we first started developing Guampedia we looked around the web to get inspired by other online history projects. We found Te Ara and fell in love! Your project is the best, by far, of its kind.
We began planning Guampedia back in 2002. While there are Guam history books, there was no encyclopedia about Guam’s history or the Chamorro culture. Consequently all of our work is original research. We estimate that we are less than half way done at this point, seeing that the Chamorro people and the island of Guam has a 4,000 year history!