Quake: Minor damage to stadium

A file photo of the AMI stadium. Photo / Simon Baker.

Christchurch's AMI Stadium has suffered only minor damage in this morning's quake, Rugby NZ 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden says.

"The very preliminary assessment is that there's no structural damage there, that there's a heap of minor breakages and what not, but no structural damage," Mr Snedden told NZPA.

"They tell me they're going to start a proper assessment process on Monday about that, but they say there's nothing they can see with their eyes at the moment."

Mr Snedden said the quake had come just days after Rugby NZ 2011 had looked specifically at how such a situation would be handled if it were to arise during the tournament.

"Last week the group that is responsible for dealing with this type of occurrence had actually run a three-day exercise just dealing with something major and just working through what would happen in these circumstances, so it's certainly something that had already been on our radar in terms of preparing for eventualities and an earthquake's an obvious one," he said.

"It's just a reminder that it's just not theory, it actually can happen, and that will no doubt focus us even further."

- NZPA