Wineries in the northern half of New Zealand's South Island are counting the cost of the devastating earthquake that struck in the early hours of Monday morning.
The 7.8-strength quake – which has been followed by a rash of aftershocks – struck shortly after midnight, and caused billions of dollars worth of damage in the Waipara and Marlborough regions, with the coastal tourist town of Kaikoura cut off by landslides and devastated by structural damage. Two people died in the quake that also caused major damage in the capital, Wellington.
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Waipara and Marlborough are both well-known wine-producing areas and growers and wineries are assessing the damage, as almost 900 aftershocks rumbled through the region in the subsequent 24 hours.
A wine storage facility in Marlborough had damage to some of its 240,000-liter storage tanks, resulting in wine spilling out onto the nearby road. Yealands Estate has also had some damage, with tanks shaken up and a quantity of wine lost. The company said it had not fully assessed the damage.
Bridget Ennals, from Stanley Estate, said her family house among vines in the Awatere Valley was okay, with just smashed crockery to clean up, but a house for vineyard workers farther south in Seddon looked like a write off. However, extensive repairs and strengthening made after the 2013 Seddon earthquake may have saved the two vineyard workers inside from injury. They ended up at Ennals's house.
There were no reports yet of casualties around Marlborough; luckily the timing meant there were fewer workers in the wineries. However, storage facilities in the region have reported damage and loss of inventory.
The neighboring wine region of Nelson appears to have escaped relatively unscathed, with the only wine reported as damaged so far being some bottles falling from a supermarket shelf.
As well as isolating Kaikoura, the earthquake blocked the main road south to Christchurch, meaning deliveries have to take a more circuitous route to market. Thankfully, the road north to the ferry terminal at Picton remains undamaged, although the town of Picton has been subject to heavy flooding as torrential rain added to South Islanders' woes.
The quake was centered on the settlement of Culverden in North Canterbury, near the spa town of Hanmer Springs.
New Zealand Defence Force staff are assisting with the evacuation of the whale-watching mecca of Kaikoura, with helicopters and a naval frigate being used to ferry tourists out of the town, which has limited food and water supplies.
The country is no stranger to seismic activity, with a 7.1-magnitude temblor causing massive structural damage in September 2010, followed by a 6.3-magnitude in February 2011 that killed 185 people in Christchurch. Frequent smaller quakes have been recorded since then, including the 2013 Seddon and Lake Grassmere quakes, both of which caused substantial property damage.
