Paul Gorman writes in The Press that scientists were aware of the small fault which cased last week’s earthquake from September of last year, but focused their attention on the fault which had just caused the major Darfield earthquake.
Other faults around Canterbury might have been stressed by Tuesday’s quake.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“GNS Science natural hazards manager Kelvin Berryman said the September 8 shake had been recognised as significant, but the focus had naturally been on the major Darfield quake.
“”That [fault’s presence] was out there fairly early on. I did go back and have a look at that, and the epicentre was very close to this one.
“”It was a very isolated event at the time, but almost six months later we’ve come back to it,” he said.
“Cantabrians should not be overly worried about the two or more hidden southwest/northeast-trending faults believed to separate the Greendale and Port Hills features, Berryman said.
“”In that sense, every aftershock has been on a fault, so there’s a hell of a lot of faults around Christchurch.””