I recommend the interesting discussion , and useful comments, regarding resilience that is on the Homeland Security Watch blog for Sept. 5 and also Sept. 8th.  Mark Chubb the author of the posting has extensive experience working in NZ.

By way of background, NZ  has a very high risk of earthquake in most parts of the country. (For a listing of the major earthquakes in N.Z. in recent years, go to this site on GeoNet.) The leaders are aware of it and have taken many steps to deal with it, including the creation of  special insurance, run by their  Earthquake Commission. One surprise was that the fault that triggered the recent set of quakes was previously unknown.

One example of the foresight of the NZ government, which I am aware of — in 1995, the Commission was a sponsor of an international conference that dealt with recovery and rebuilding of a major city after an earthquake.  I was privileged to participate in the conference, which was excellent, and a high quality report was issued. The report is titled “Wellington  after the ‘Quake: The Challenge of Rebuilding Cities.” I hope the Commission makes the text available in digital form soon.

Related Articles

• Christchurch Earthquake Visualizations (gearthblog.com)
• New Zealand Earthquake Opens New Fault Line, Moves One Side of Earth (blippitt.com)
• New Zealand quake was ‘known unknown’ (newscientist.com)