Mayor asks Chch to check on neighbours

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker. Photo / Christchurch Star.

Christchurch's Mayor has asked residents to check on the health of their neighbours but to otherwise stay indoors following this morning's massive earthquake.

The quake, which measured 7.4 on the Richter scale, happened about 4.30am. It was centred on Darfield, near Christchurch, and was at a depth of 33km.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said there were concerns about the city infrastructure, including water and sewage. Residents were asked to conserve water and not go out far.

"The one thing I would ask people to do is just to check on your neighbours, particularly in areas where there are elderly people and others who would have been perhaps startled," he told Newstalk ZB.

"There's been a lot of furniture I would say fallen, a lot of bookshelves tipped over, paintings fallen off walls."

Mr Parker said he hadn't heard of any major injuries "but I have to be honest and say it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't some".

"We've had a lot of chimneys fallen down ... in the central city area. There are streets that are impassable with the masonry that has come down from old building fronts that have collapsed into the streets," he said.

"We've had reports coming in from the eastern side of the city on the coastline of some liquefaction in those areas where the shaking has literally turned the earth into liquid and water and silt has come up on some of the streets, even reports of some areas that are flooded.

"There is no tsunami danger, this is an onshore event, but obviously there is concern in the seaside suburbs and people just need to be calm in those areas."

Mr Parker, a central city resident, said he was at the city council building within 15 minutes of the quake.

Environment Canterbury civil defence staff were looking at damage to the region as a whole, assessing infrastructure in particular and clearing roadways.

"We're just asking people not to travel if it's not absolutely necessary, please let's keep the roads as open as we can," he said.

"Watch out for bridges; we're going around checking bridges and that sort of infrastructure."

Assessments were also being made of damage at Christchurch Airport.

Mr Parker said there had been a number of aftershocks.

Some streets seemed to be untouched but others were more badly impacted.

"I don't want to paint too grim a picture -- we haven't seen entire buildings collapse that I'm aware of -- but certainly there have been walls on streets in the older masonry buildings that have collapsed outwards, the odd veranda has come down, shopfront windows have broken in some areas. It's a traumatic event for the city this morning."

- NZPA