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The image is real, according to the photographers of this two-mile stretch of railway near hard-hit Christchurch.
According to blogger, Dave Petley, the damage to the line, which links Canterbury with the west coast of the South Island, directly followed the terrible quake. In his own words:
“The compression…was accommodated when a weak point was found, leading to a comparatively rapid deformation to form the main buckle on the left. This then concentrated stress on both sides of the buckle, allowing the other bends to form.”
In areas of the world with diverse temperature variations (particularly summer heat) such as that found in the western United States and Australia, this type of buckling is not that unusual. The rails will expand when warmed if they are laid during colder weather and that forces the extra rail to move sideways. Rails are usually laid in warmer weather so that it won’t “sun-kink.”
"The farmer at this site very kindly allowed us to enter his field ...
where the array of cracks, and associated deformation, is astonishing.
GNS have an aerial view of the field." from this blog
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