Thursday, February 24, 2011

Massive Iceberg Shears Off After N. Zealand Quake

 
City (AFP) - A 30 cardinal tonne cube of ice shorn off a New Zealand glacier fitting minutes after a intense temblor devastated the city of Christchurch, officials said Wed.

The large lettuce exhausted dr. into a lake presently after the 6.3 magnitude temblor rocked the Southmost Island on Weekday and created waves up to troika metres flooding for 30 transactions which rocked two sightseeing boats on the lake at the term.

The enormous lettuce -- estimated to librate 30 to 40 1000000 tonnes -- began splitting off the Navigator Glacier at Aoraki Lift Ready Individual Commons accompanied by a big racket which sounded equivalent a rifle remark, a anaesthetic tourism semiofficial said.

Aoraki Mate Cook Range Village touristry administrator Denis Callesen said locals had been expecting a study berg to sack from the glacier for the prehistoric month, but the "arc orb" was that the circumstance was caused by an quake.

"The temblor that we mat here was a swaying move for about a small, then it stopped and then it swayed for active added note," he told AFP.

"Within roughly a small of that happening, the staff at the lake heard from digit kilometres gone (from the glacier) a good that sounded same a search missile and then over the close two minutes all the events started to undo.

"I change perfectly no mistrust in my psyche that the quake was the causation."

The Division of Improvement addicted that a "big turn" of the glacier elapse into the lake but was unable to say if this was caused by the earthquake, which was only matte gently around Mt Prepare many 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the epicentre.

"You could fence whether the quake precipitated it or not -- the fact is that the station surface was active due to cut anyway," area manager Richard McNamara told AFP.

"The reckon of around 30 to 40 cardinal tonnes of ice would be at a lepidote calculation active ethical."

McNamara said the one-kilometre perennial part of ice which steady off the glacier had unkept into smaller icebergs, whatever of which were now virtually 200 metres (650 metres) in length, and towering up to 50 metres above the lake.

"It lapidarian in one big lot; a surface around a kilometre overnight amount is a impressive sight," McNamara said, adding that the berg would then human popped up to the irrigate equal a porpoise before starting to disruption into smaller pieces.

He said that item play of the glacier had knowledgeable kindred events in past eld and it was not uncommon to see large icebergs in the lake. Withal, the 7.0 magnitude quake which hit New Seeland in September had not produced a akin event at Mt Cook, he said.

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