Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Earthquake Shmearthquake

A 5.9 earthquake struck Hawke's Bay last night. (Don't worry, that's about 300km's from us.) 5.9!! That's like, huge! So what do you think ensued? Panic? Mayhem? Death and destruction? Nope. Not here. In fact, not a single emergency call was made despite power outages in some areas . GNS Science duty seismologist Warwick Smith commented to the NZ Herald that, "New Zealand generally got a quake measuring about 6.0 once a year and Hawke's Bay residents would be as hardened as anyone to quakes, being on the country's main earthquake belt."

And, ladies and gentlemen, that pretty much sums up the Kiwi attitude toward hardship. Harden the *&$%# up! There's a comedy sketch show from Australia that does a bit about this and it applies equally, perhaps more so, to Kiwis. Enjoy, but know this is not for the easily offended or perhaps the workplace due to language.


3 comments:

Cathy Ezrailson, Science Education, University of South Dakota said...

Wow, it IS a very different attitude about nature. We Americans seem to dramatize the trivial and hype the exceptional. We could use more calm acceptance of life's ups and downs, I think. We seem to always seek someone or something to blame.
That Youtube clip was also very funny.
Cathy

Patois42 said...

Stop being so metric, man. Make me look up kilometers? I'm too dang lazy for that. You're the blogger. Don't make me think, man.

Anonymous said...

If I calculate right that's less than 200 miles from you. That seems close. Am I doing it backwards? Zoe, Haley, please help your metric challenged Grmma!
love,m/grmma