Some After-effects of the Earthquake

One of the interesting things about sea life is that the niches are so crowded that sometimes life clings to one very specialist zone. One of my favourite examples was a seaweed that grew on the southwest face of rocks in a harbour in a band of about ten centimeters depth, and then only in a spot that was about twenty meters long! Yes, that was somewhat exceptional, but the principle applies broadly, if not so strictly. Kaikoura is a great place for finding crayfish (rock lobster), and is reflected by the name, and the coast was a great place for other diverse marine life, including seaweed. During the recent quake, the land rose two meters. The places where I described certain seaweeds as originating from in some of my scientific papers are now high and dry, so the descriptions are no longer helpful. But this land rising will also be a serious disruption to marine life in the near intertidal zone because when the life form wants to be a specific distance below sea-level at low king tide, a two meter lift completely alters much of the environment.

This gives an interesting view from the environmentalists: they decree that none of the recently exposed wild-life shall be harvested, and instead be left to die. I am far from convinced this makes sense. Thus paua (a version of abalone) are hemophiliac, and if cut they die. They cannot return to the sea, and they cannot be shifted. What is the point in leaving them rot? I have heard the explanation, the nutrients will go back to the sea, but that is nonsense from my point of view. Such nutrients will only benefit plant life that can absorb it more or less immediately, and the ocean currents take the rest away. Some of the greenies seem incapable of putting numbers to their thoughts. I once saw one criticism of an attempt at aquaculture state that a particular one-acre pool was going to pollute the Pacific Ocean by deoxygenating it. Leaving aside the wave action during storms, and that the aquaculture was for seaweed, the Pacific is so huge such a statement merely displays a total lack of ability at elementary mathematics.

Back to more standard difficulties. Apart from small segments, the land to the north of Kaikoura is a very narrow coastal strip leading to almost vertical hills that are several hundred meters high. To the south there is a little flat land, then the road has to cross some very torn terrain. The earthquake dropped enormous amounts of rock onto the roads, and it will take months to clear reasonable access and stabilize the hills. The town has too little land for a significant airport, and while it has a port for small vessels, large ones cannot be accommodated.

So our TV programs showed tourists being evacuated on a navy transport ship. These are designed to have smaller landing craft that can more or less go anywhere. The tourists were taken out and had to climb a rope ladder to get into a hatch, where they would settle in a fairly mammoth area. The comfort levels would be low, because the military aims to get things done, but not with excessive comfort, but they aim to be able to do things as near to under any circumstances as possible.

Then in another news clip my attention was drawn to a ship just offshore. That did not look like any of ours, and we saw sailors in uniforms that were not like ours, and that was because it wasn’t and they weren’t. This particular ship was from the US navy, that happened to be in the region, and it dropped other activities to offer what help it could. Apparently there were also ships from the Australian and Canadian navies helping. Thank you, US, Canadian and Australian navies. In a disaster like this, one of the great assets of the military is that they get things done, and they have expertise and skills that really help when survival becomes an issue. Meanwhile our army has managed to open some sort of goat track route to get survival equipment in as well. So far, only in their near “go anywhere” trucks.

Meanwhile, in Wellington, it appears a number of buildings are going to have to be demolished. One of the interesting statements about the building code is, it is not designed to ensure a building will survive a major quake and be able to be used thereafter; it is designed so that the building will have enough structural integrity that nobody is going to get killed during the quake. My guess is property investors who have focused on apartments in the Wellington CBD are going to be a bit nervous for a while.

All of which makes my problems look a bit on the pathetic side. As far as I can tell (and with my recent hip replacement I am not yet sufficiently mobile to check a lot) my house has survived more or less intact, my children’s properties are essentially undamaged, and nobody nearby has sustained serious damage. All in all, things have worked out well for us.

So, back to the more mundane. Somehow I have to work out how to promote my latest ebook, ‘Bot War which will be published on December 2. Interestingly, I see some think that under President Trump, the US is headed towards disaster. I don’t think so, but my novel does give an alternative reason why some of what Trump says should be avoided.

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