New Zealand calls for restraint after whaling clash

WELLINGTON, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) — The New Zealand government said on Thursday that whalers and anti-whaling protesters must now put a greater premium on human life.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said the clash must not be allowed to escalate.

“The New Zealand government is totally opposed to Japanese whaling taking place in the Southern (Pacific) Ocean, but we’re also opposed to killing human beings down there as well,” Radio New Zealand quoted McCully as saying.

“It’s quite clear that unless there is some restraint exercise, there is serious risk to human life in that region at the moment,” he added.

Maritime New Zealand will meet on Thursday to discuss how an investigation into the collision involving a protest boat and a Japanese security ship in Antarctica will proceed.

Japan’s government-backed whaling fleet aims to harpoon up to 935 mink whales and 50 fin whales, classed as endangered, in the Southern Ocean this season, claiming it is for research purposes.

The Ady Gil collided with the security ship Shonan Maru No. 2 near Commonwealth Bay on Wednesday.

The New Zealand-registered vessel is the powerboat previously known as Earthrace, which set a world circumnavigation record.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society claimed the security ship rammed the protesters deliberately.

However, a group representing the Japanese whalers, the Institute of Cetacean Research, said footage of a crash showed the security ship was trying to avoid colliding with the Ady Gil.

The incident was filmed from the Shonan Maru No. 2 and showed that the Ady Gil was stationary, but began to move as the vessels came closer together.

The crash tore about 3 meters off the bow of the Ady Gil, but none of its crew members – five from New Zealand and one from the Netherlands – were hurt. They were rescued by the crew of the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/07/content_12768422.htm

More than 100 whales die in strandings

More than 120 whales have died in separate beachings on New Zealand’s two main islands.

The Department of Conservation says 21 pilot whales will be buried by Coromandel Maori on Monday after dying when they became stranded on Sunday.

Sixty-three whales, mostly cows with calves, beached themselves at Colville Bay, north of Coromandel township, on the North Island’s east coast.

The 3-4 metre whales were seen by fishermen struggling about 300m offshore around 6am and they called emergency services.

About two thirds were saved by locals and holidaymakers who kept the surviving whales wet in the low tide until it rose in the early afternoon and they could be refloated.

DOC spokeswoman for the area Lyn Williams said none of those whales had returned to the beach overnight.

“They were last seen they were swimming healthily out to the ocean,” she said.

One of the cows gave birth to a calf almost immediately after being refloated.

The 21 dead whales were being watched over last night by local iwi Ngati Tamatera before a burial ceremony today.

Meanwhile, 105 long-finned pilot whales died at Farewell Spit at the top of the South Island on Saturday.

DOC Golden Bay biodiversity program manager Hans Stoffregen told The Southland Times none of the stranded pod survived.

Because the site is in a natural reserve, the whale carcasses have been left to decompose.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/more-than-100-whales-die-in-strandings-20091228-lgjv.html

Massive quake moves NZealand closer to Australia

WELLINGTON (AFP) – A massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake last week has moved the south of New Zealand closer to Australia, scientists said Wednesday.

With the countries separated by the 2,250-kilometre-wide (1,400-mile-wide) Tasman Sea, the 30 centimetre (12 inch) closing of the gap in New Zealand’s southwest won’t make much difference.

But earthquake scientist Ken Gledhill of GNS Science said the shift illustrated the huge force of the tremor, the biggest in the world so far this year.

“Basically, New Zealand just got a little bit bigger is another way to think about it,” he told AFP.

While the southwest of the South Island moved about 30 centimetres closer to Australia, the east coast of the island moved only one centimetre westwards, he said.

The biggest quake in New Zealand in 78 years caused only slight damage to buildings and property when it struck the remote southwest Fiordland region of the South Island last Thursday.

A small tsunami was generated by the earthquake, with a tide gauge on the West Coast of New Zealand recording a wave of one metre.

“For a very large earthquake, although it was very widely felt, there were very few areas that were severely shaken,” Gledhill said.

Aerial inspection of the forested fiords near the quake’s epicentre showed few land slips or other signs of damage.

This was partly because the type of rupture at the boundaries of the Australian and Pacific plates meant the energy from the quake was largely directed westwards towards the sea rather than inland towards the nearest towns.

The type of quake, known as a subduction thrust rupture, also meant the quake produced lower frequency shaking, felt as a rolling motion, rather than sharp jolts which would have caused more damage.

New Zealand frequently suffers earthquakes because it marks the meeting point of the Australian and Pacific continental plates.

Gledhill said the latest quake may have brought forward a major quake on the offshore section of the Alpine fault, off the coast of Fiordland in the Tasman Sea.

“There could easily be another large earthquake in another part of that region. We can’t predict that obviously.”

The latest quake was the biggest since February 2, 1931 when a 7.8 quake killed at least 256 people in the North Island city of Napier.

The biggest quake recorded here measured 8.2 and caused major damage in 1855 in the fledgling European settlement that later became the capital Wellington.

The latest quake was unusual in striking right on the boundary of the Australian and Pacific plates and will be important in researching earthquake hazards, Gledhill said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090722/sc_afp/nzealandquakescience

Whole Lotta Shakin’…

Earthquake reports for the past 24 hours:

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Kyrgyzstan Sunday, rattling nearly 22 miles of the Central Asian landscape

http://www.myfoxspringfield.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7581698&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.4.1

A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 struck off New Zealand on Sunday

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5isDKkKUb66JuS0klznld7wLF6EaQ

Three earthquakes measuring 5.6-6 points on the Richter scale have hit Lake Baikal

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13138597&PageNum=0

The US Geological Survey says a magnitude 5.7 earthquake has struck a remote northwestern Chinese region.

http://www.metronews.ca/calgary/world/article/93954