New Zealand and earth quakes..

I'm a New Zealander and I've only felt three earthquakes and they were all very minor! The only thing I really felt was that the floor sort of shifted under my feet, and I was working in a science lab up on the fifth floor of a building once and felt the building sway a little, but they never did any damage. The thing with NZ is that it is situated on a plate boundary which runs up the country, it runs up the middle of the south island and then also up the centre of the North Island and the earthquakes are mainly centralised along these areas. I live up in the North of the North Island (north of Auckland) and we never get earthquakes up this far, there have been some very very small ones felt in Auckland, but they are very rare and really nothing to worry about! The earthquakes I felt were from when I lived down near the bottom of the North Island (closer to the fault line).

Really Christchurch and Canterbury is the main area really affected by the earthquakes, there hasn't been any big ones recently, but I think there are still small ones, the big one last year really did a lot of damage though and was devastating, but earthquakes that size are very rare and don't occur all that often.

Seriously, I wouldn't let the earthquake thing put you off coming to NZ, stay in the upper North Island and you most likely won't experience any at all!!

Yep, I'm a kiwi too and live in Auckland = never had an earthquake here

I was in Christchurch for all the earthquakes, lived there until Dec 11 when I relocated to the North Island because of my husbands job. It is our intention to return to Christchurch asap as that is home for us.
The earthquakes are very unsettling, to experience first hand and worse, for family back in the UK who never knew whether I was safe until I could contact them. The whole of NZ has potential for earthquakes, the North Island for volcanic activity.
That said, it's an amazing country and if you get the chance to come, then do...many people have left Christchurch due to stress and the constant fear of another big shake and unless you have experienced a big one, you can't describe it's power.
I think the fact that 185 people died could be considered "menacing", of course it's not 9/11 or Japan but was a pretty big deal for those of us who lived and lost people through it.
If you do come, and visit the South Island, be aware of the feelings of those people in Christchurch, some are still "freaked out" but have no option but to stay...the Aucklanders,well, it's just another news day to them.

I live in Christchurch. I've felt at least 2,000 earthquakes since September 2010. You sort of get used to them, they definitely are getting less frequent. I probably feel one every 2 weeks that is 3.0, and every month that is 4.0. The chances of you dying from any future earthquakes is about as high as the chances of you dying on the flight over. Pretty small. One issue to know about is that there is a housing shortage here in Chch. This is due to the unoccupied houses which are damaged, putting pressure on the housing market. I have no idea how much extra you'd need to pay for rent, maybe $20-40 a week, as a guess.

Come live in CA for awhile and you'll see that earthquakes are actually nothing to really worry about. We have them daily, although it takes at least a 3.5 magnitude to feel anything. Even then, to most Californians that's just a little wiggle.

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