Ripple effects hit after Navy ship’s sinking, clean-up efforts get under way in Dunedin and how one Wellingtonian is boycotting the city’s rates increase.
One resident triggered the evacuation of an entire Wellington apartment block after calling emergency services about a “physical disturbance” in their apartment.
The evacuation of an entire Wellington apartment building has been called a false alarm, triggered by one resident who called emergency services about a “physical disturbance” in their apartment.
Fire and Emergency Central shift manager Murray Dunbar said Fenz received reports late last night that “could indicate structural damage” at the Victoria Lane Apartments in the central city.
Wellington had been struck by a 5.7 magnitude earthquake earlier in the day.
Residents were evacuated with Wellington City Council setting up a welfare centre in nearby Willis St while engineers carried out an assessment.
The all-clear was given around midnight with residents allowed back in, two hours after being cleared out.
David McGuinness - managing director of Willis Bond, the building’s developer - saidthe inspection found no issues and no other residents raised concerns.
He said the building performed exactly as expected from a base-isolated building “with gold standard seismic resilience”.
McGuinness said a thorough inspection by the team concluded there was no evidence of structural or any other damage.
“That said, it was an excellent example of the responsiveness of our emergency services who provided a rapid, calm and cautious response.
“We stand by the fact that base isolation is the gold standard for seismic resilience, and the fact that the building has been thoroughly inspected following this incident and found to have no damage is the best way to illustrate this.”
A Wellington apartment block was evacuated last night after a report of shaking.
McGuinness said the evacuation was a huge inconvenience for residents but luckily one owned a nearby cafe and opened the premises so evacuees could gather while the inspection took place.
One person earlier told the Herald the “physical disturbance” was shaking.
The Victoria Lane Apartments opened in March last year and were prized as Wellington’s first base-isolated apartment development.
The project at 161 Victoria St includes 24 base isolators, effectively separating the building structure from the ground. The building is also wrapped in a diagonal grid of steel.
The combination of these two resilience design measures means the building should withstand a one-in-1000-year earthquake, compared to conventionally built high-rise buildings designed to stand a one-in-100-year seismic event.
Victoria Lane apartments. Image / Supplied
Several buildings in the city have been checked after the earthquake, which hit at 5.08am yesterday, 25km west of Wellington in Cook Strait.
The earthquake was the strongest recorded in New Zealand since a magnitude 5.7 on September 20, 2023, near Geraldine in Canterbury.
It was also the latest in a recent series of quakes in Cook Strait, which included a 4.8 shake on August 5 and a 5.0 event last Tuesday, just northeast of Seddon.
More than 37,000 people reported feeling it, according to the GeoNet website. It was detected as far north as Auckland and far south as Christchurch.
