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The Big One: What will an Alpine Fault quake feel like?

Jamie Morton
By
Multimedia Journalist·NZ Herald·
14 mins to read

One hundred and fifty seconds.

That's how long it could take to transform the South Island.

The big quake strikes somewhere deep in the Fiordland wilderness, erupting with a magnitude 7.9 mainshock.

The ripples roll north, roaring beneath the West Coast at a blistering pace of 4km per second.

At just under a minute into the sequence, Haast has been hammered.

At the opposite end of the island, people walking about the streets of Christchurch haven't felt a thing.

That's

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