Damages from New Zealand aftershock to eclipse losses from Sept. 2010 quake

An earthquake that struck the New Zealand’s city of Christchurch on Feb. 21, 2011 was smaller in magnitude than the quake that struck the area in September 2010, but damages from the recent quake will eclipse those of the 2010 event, reported Guy Carpenter.
The September 2010 quake caused an estimated $3 billion worth of economic damage.
Catastrophe modeller EQECAT said it is difficult to determine insured damage from the Feb. 21 earthquake, because damage had already been done to the same buildings after the September 2010 quake. Nonetheless, EQECAT estimated damage from the most recent earthquake to be more than $1 billion.
The 6.3 Mw quake on Feb. 21, 2011, an aftershock of the Sept. 4, 2010 quake, struck at 1 pm on Feb. 22, 2011 (local time), and caused more than 65 fatalities and widespread damage. The epicentre was five kilometres from downtown Christchurch, at a shallow depth of four kilometres, reported the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The Sept. 2010 quake, by comparison, was a magnitude 7.0, had an epicentre approximately 44 kilometres from Christchurch and occurred in the middle of the night, when Christchurch’s business section would have been virtually deserted, RMS reported.
“Buildings and parts of structures in the central business district were destroyed [as a result of the Feb. 22 quake], including the six-storey Canterbury TV building, which was reduced to a ruin and Christchurch cathedral, which lost its spire,” Guy Carpenter reported. “Reports said that the multi-storey Pyne Gould Guiness building, which houses 200 workers, had collapsed, leaving an unknown number of people trapped inside.”
According to the USGS, an estimated 526,000 people live in areas affected by the quake. Of those, 310,000 people live in areas affected by severe to violent shaking.