New Zealand could be in store for a devastating earthquake in the coming years with two fault zones set to collide. The Oceanic country is still coming to terms with the damage caused by the 2011 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Christchurch which claimed the lives of almost 200 people. Researchers are now warning New Zealanders to brace themselves for a
quake which could measure 8.0 on the Richter Scale in the coming years. The experts behind the study say that a collision between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates – a 500 kilometre stretch known as the Alpine Fault – takes place every 300 years or so, with the last one happening in 1717. When the collision does happen, the fault will rupture in “an extreme magnitude 8 earthquake in the coming decades”, the team from the Vitoria University of Wellington wrote in their study published in Nature. READ MORE
