New Zealand might be hit by an earthquake which will be 11,000 times as powerful as NZ’s Christchurch quake. The type of fault responsible for the destructive earthquakes and tsunami in the world could generate the ‘megathrust’ earthquakes.
The earthquake is expected to have a magnitude of 9.0 in the pacific country and can trigger giant tsunamis according to a New Zealand scientist.
Geologist Ursula Cochran of the Earth and geosciences research company GNS Science said that they should think about Japan 2011 in case the whole plate boundary ruptured it might lead to a magnitude -9 earthquake.
The Hikurangi plate boundary is located off the East Coast of New Zealand’s North Island. It is the place where the Pacific tectonic plate dives underneath the Australian tectonic plate.
The subduction zone was dormant before the 7.8 tremor near Kaikoura in November 2016.
Cochran said that they did not want people to think from the Kaikoura earthquake.
The most destructive earthquakes and tsunamis are caused by the subduction zones which is a type of fault.
Currently a team of international scientists is monitoring the Hikurangi plate boundary to discover the risk it poses to New Zealand.
The earthquakes are measured on a logarithmic scale, if a magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake released 177 times as much energy as the magnitude 6.3 Christchurch quake killing 185 people in 2011.
A 9.0 megathrust will be 11,000 times more powerful.
Tags: Hikurangi, Kaikoura, Megathrust, Ursula Cochran
