Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Hope all our members and their loved ones in New Zealand are safe and unharmed.

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Général Gregor Morgan
Duc de Montebello et Comte de Gironde
Chef d'État-Major de la Grande Armée
Commandant du 1er Corps d'Armée

My wife's uncle's house in Christchurch was destroyed in the quake but we think all her relatives are safe.

I echo Greg's concern for our NZ members. You and your country are in my thoughts and prayers.

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Hey, Colin, you did not let my sword get bent in that quake, did you?

Seriously guys, check in when you can. We all want to know that you are OK.

My family in Christchurch are ok and as we are in Wellington we are all safe.

It's a bad one this time in Christchurch though with many casualties as several multi story buildings came down. eg A mother died with her baby in her arms out shopping yesterday - just terrible.

I was in a meeting with a guy yesterday who had to leave and return home via ship and driving as the airports for the whole south island were closed.
His house had been completely destroyed, his wife was in a frenzy and his kids were unaccounted for. The children are ok I now understand. I imagine he would have got home around midnight last night. Just a typical example I guess of hundreds of thousands of our countrymen and what they are going through.

What can I say a dark hour for our small country known as the shaky isles. People are in shock.

Thanks for the support guys. The Australian prime minister made a superb speech yesterday we are all feeling impressed with our old friends and sometimes rivals on the sportsfield.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

Very sorry to hear this guys. The earthquakes around the world seemed to have heightened in the last 30 years. Such devastation.

Question: what is your building code like over there? I mean this isnt Haiti. Did the quakes of the past cause earthquake codes to be implemented?

Where I lived for years (San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles area) we had damage in our quakes but nowhere near the amount of deaths. But it all depends on where the epicenter is. The Northridge quake leveled a parking structure and one apartment building (3 story and was a long structure) dropped down a story.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

Hey Bill. The building code is pretty much the highest in the world in New Zealand. However Christchurch was not thought to have a fault under it until the events of Sept last year so it has a number of old historic English style buildings. The spire of the landmark Christchurch cathedral came down with people in it yesterday....

That said some of the risen buildings that collapsed are not that old and have been earthquake strengthened. Hence people are stunned.

Unfortunately this latest quake was only 5km under the ground and was pretty much centred in one of the outer suburbs of the city. The resulting force generated by 1.5 times the power of gravity in some areas and as Christchurch which is mainly alluvial the damage and liquafaction is bad.
This is against the background of weakened buildings from the 7.1 last year and hundreds/thousands of after shocks some as high as 5.7.

The 7.1 generated 0.8 the power of gravity in the city. Yesterdays 6.3 was reported as 1.5 as I say above.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

My deepest apologies for the joke about the sword, guys. I had no idea that the latest quake was so devastating when I posted this morning.

Knowing that New Zealand has some of the best building codes in the world in regard to earthquakes, I did not expect a 6.3 to be so much more damaging, and deadly, than this year's previous 7.1. Epicenter location is certainly a part of it, but the duration of the shockwave is also critical to the amount of damage it inflicts.

So very glad to hear that you and your family are OK, Colin. There are still a lot of your countrymen that need to check in. Certainly they are occupied with the catastrophe at hand there. Hopefully they, and their families, are all right as well.

Again, my sincerest apology for my poor judgment this morning. Keeping all of you Kiwis in my thoughts and prayers.

No offense taken at all Mark. Kiwi humour is still intact.

A state of national emergency declared today. The New Zealand spirit is never easily exstinguished I am confident we will recover fully in time.

The strange thing being in Wellington which is one of the most dangerous earthquake places in the world is that our friends further south copped all this. Just seems wrong.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

When you use the phrase "risen buildings" are you saying that they had come down before?

Very sorry to hear about all of this. The Ring of Fire doing it's deadliest again. In Idaho we have had earthquakes in the past but nothing while I have been here that I noticed. And I am not sure that the buildings they have would withstand a 6.3 that is for certain.

We had a 6.8 or 7.2 or whatever in 1994. Some say that they purposely reduced the rating so that FEMA would not have to pay out large sums but whatever. It did severe damages to SOME structures and much damage to most. We had to have several cracks in my grandmother's house sealed up when we remodeled. The carpet folks found the crack in the bedroom floor and put in sealant for me - very nice of them to do that. Crack in ceiling ran from one end of the living room out into the kitchen. I had a dry wall fella fix that for me (friend from church). Learned much about what you can and cannot do with dry wall! He used a web-like material to go over it and then coated it with the mud. Other than tear out the entire section there wasn't much else we could do and we never had problems with it after that.

Hope you folks can recover from this. I am sure that folks in Christchurch are looking to condemn some buildings and take a serious look at what they need to do for future quakes. God bless!

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

Hi Bill no what i meant by risen was 4 or 5 levels - Christchurch does not really has high rises hence the strange term.

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Marechal Knox

Prince d'Austerlitz et Comte d'Argentan
Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur

"What is history but a fable agreed upon"

Thanks for the thoughts guys,

Casualty toll is over 100 and likely to rise over 200. The city centre is destroyed. Many suburban areas badly damaged. Roads and infrastructure within the city seriously damaged. Outer areas and main routes not so bad. The city has been bought to its knees.

Hundreds of specialists from overseas teams are now in the city working to recue /recover and assist. Wonderful response from those nations! Military and Police numbers are large, including 300 Aussie cops arriving as we speak, in the best ANZAC spirit! The medical facilities fortunately were relatively unscathed and operating well. A large military exercise was being conducted in the south island at the time which has been able to provide immediate assistance.

This is the biggest disaster to hit NZ since the Napier earthquake in 1931. Most, like 90%, of kiwis will directly know people affcted by this.

Saw this on the web (was searching for some news on the relief efforts):

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 31/1/.html

And here is a site showing some progress on the efforts in the city:

http://earthquake-report.com/2011/03/03 ... -3-update/

Glad to hear that power is starting to be restored to customers.

When we had our quake in Los Angeles in 1994 folks were not allowed to return to the buildings to get their possessions but looters somehow found them. I hope that, along with their lives being saved, the folks are able to retrieve their possessions as well.

The cost of the earthquake as you can imagine is enourmous:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2 ... 2-billion/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2 ... rch-quake/

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

We haven't in Christchurch got classic high rises like some cities but when you have relatively modern twenty storey buildings that need to be demolished because of damaged sustained you know you are in trouble. Scary.

Our own building has eight floors and was built in the late 80's. The quake has broken its back and it is to be demolished.

Although some modern buildings have to be taken down most of them did remain standing when it really counted. Thank goodness.

I cannot speak highly enough of the bravery of all of the rescue and medical services. The CBD was dead set horrific but I will never forget how they all came rushing in to help people at great risk to themselves. It was especially amazing as there were a number of very heavy aftershocks after the main quake.

Glad to hear you are ok Nik & top job to the fire and rescue services.....

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Generalfeldmarschall Scott Kronprinz "Vorwärts" Ludwig von Preußen
Kommandeur des Königlich-Preußischen Armee-Korps
Chief of Staff (CoS) of the Allied Coalition
Allied Coalition Webmaster & Club Website Support

Hey! Glad to hear from you Nik. I would love to visit NZ sometime. Maybe they need a guy to help clear away debris? Would work for food and lodging ... (and an airline ticket ...).

Very sorry to hear about the damage and I can understand being from "earthquake country." We have yet to have anything here in Boise but this is a former volcanic region (Craters of the Moon just to east of us) and I expect we could feel something in the near future.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)