The media have remarked on the lack of casualties , despite the close parallels of the quake to incidents that have had devastating consequences in other countries , such as the 1989 San Francisco quake , which killed 63 people and was magnitude 7.1 also . The analysis especially compared the Canterbury quake with the 2010 Haiti earthquake , which also occurred in similar proximity to an urban area , also occurred at shallow depth under the surface , and was of very similar strength . Unlike the many tens of thousands of deaths in Haiti ( with some estimates placing the death toll at one in ten or higher ) , no deaths directly attributable to the earthquake were reported in New Zealand . This was ascribed to the fact that the quake happened in the early hours of a Saturday morning , when most people were asleep in timber framed homes , and " ... there would almost certainly have been many deaths and serious injuries had it happened during a busy time of the day ... " . Another important factor was building practices which took earthquakes into account , starting after the 1848 Marlborough earthquake and the 1855 Wairarapa earthquake , both of which badly affected Wellington . These led to formal standards after the 1931 Hawke 's Bay earthquake , which have since been progressively updated . By contrast , Haiti 's much lower standard codes were poorly enforced and many buildings were made of hand-made non-reinforced concrete , which is extremely vulnerable to seismic damage . Ground shaking in populated areas of Canterbury was also generally less strong than for the Haiti quake
1931 Hawke 's Bay earthquake
1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake
2010 Canterbury earthquake