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On 7/15/2009 9:22:33 AM UTC an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 and depth 33km has struck an unpopulated area in the Southland Province (population: 0 million) in New Zealand. GDACS estimates the likelihood for need of international humanitarian intervention to be low (Green alert). It is likely that a tsunami was generated. The maximum tsunami wave height near the coast of New Zealand will be 0m. Please refer to the GDACS tsunami report for more details. This earthquake can have a low humanitarian impact since the affected region is unpopulated and has high resilience for natural disasters. The nearest populated places are [None]. It is a mountainous region with a maximum altitude of 1575 m.
Caution: this information is based on risk models. Whether international humanitarian aid is needed must be decided by an
expert.
This report was automatically updated by a computer on: 7/15/2009 9:49:00 AM UTC (26 minutes after the event) Explanation of alert calculation: Show Tsunami wave height |
Earthquake epicentre: best estimate |
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Geological map
Characteristics for this report
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Previous reports for this earthquake.
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The population in the area of this earthquake if 0 people/kmē. (Data source).
The earthquake occurred at 20h local time. At this time a day, more people are at home and therefore more vulnerable to collapsing residential buildings. During traffic hours, people can be affected by collapsing bridges and other road infrastructure.
| Population Data | ||
|---|---|---|
| Radius (km) | Population | Density (people/kmē) |
| 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 10 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | 3 | 0 |
| 50 | 96 | 0 |
| 100 | 991 | 0 |
| 200 | 17058 | 0 |
The affected region has low level of urban area (0%) and a low level of cultivated area (2%). In urban areas more damage can be expected than in cultivated or natural areas. (Data source)
| Radius (km) | urban areas | cultivated areas | other |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | 0% | 2.01% | 97.98% |
| 100 | 0% | 1.94% | 98.05% |
| 50 | 0% | 0.08% | 99.91% |
| 10 | 0% | 0% | 1000% |
Resilience is the capacity of the population to cope with a hazard. Since much of investments in earthquake preparedness and available funds for quick response is related to household income, the GDP per capita can be used as a rough indicator of resilience.
New Zealand has a GDP per capita of 17210 PPP$ (Parity Purchasing Power Dollar, about 1 Euro) and is therefore part of the high level income countries. Therefore, the earthquake happened in an area of high resilience.
Based on the combination of 9 indicators, ECHO attributes New Zealand a low vulnerability.
Both conditions for survival and conditions for delivering aid strongly depend on the current weather and temperature. The following graphs show the current and forecast weather.
Current weather conditions and forecasts at earthquake location (lat: -46.1 - long: 166.3) (Data source).
More detailed observations at closest weather station (Manapouri): WeatherByWeb - NOAA
Landslides: The maximum slope in the area of the earthquake is 57.558%
and the maximum altitude is 1575 m. Since this is a medium
slope, the risk of earthquake induced landslides is medium.
Note, however, that the slope data is not reliable on a local scale, while
landslides depend very much on local topography, soil and meteorological
conditions. More...
Tsunami:
the JRC tsunami wave propagation models indicated a unknown likelihood for a destructive tsunami.
However, this probability must be confirmed by oceanographic measurements or
observations.
See full report.
The following critical infrastructure is nearby and could be affected by the earthquake:
Nuclear power plants:
There are no nuclear facilities nearby the epicenter.
Hydrodams:
The following hydrodam installations are near the epicenter: [None]
The distance to nuclear installations is evaluated based on a 1999 UN dataset containing the location of nuclear plants in the world. If plants are near and the earthquake magnitude is above 6.5, the alert is set to orange. Note that the location of plants is approximate with errors of up to 100km.
The nearest civilian airport (Manapouri) is at 122km from the epicenter. Other airports are: Stewart Island (156km), Invercargill (159km), Manapouri (122km)
Ports nearby are: South West Cape (159km), Port Pegasus (158km), Ruapuke Island (186km), Bluff (168km), Invercargill (161km), Orepuki (113km), Riverton (133km), Cape Providence (17km), Doubtful Sound (101km), Secretary Island (104km)
While we try everything to ensure accuracy, this information is purely indicative and should not be used for any decision making without alternate sources of information. The JRC is not responsible for any damage or loss resulting from the use of the information presented on this website.
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Information on this website is collected from scientific
and media sources in participation with European Commission Joint Research Centre,
UNOSAT and OCHA ReliefWeb.
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Population
Density near epicenter (people/km2). Image area: 6x4 decimal
degrees (approx. 650x450km2).
previous estimates: 
7/15/2009 9:22:33 AM (UTC, Universal Standard Time)
