Latest New Zealand Quake Causes Up to $5 Billion in Damages: Eqecat

Monday’s earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, likely caused an additional $3 billion to $5 billion in insured losses on top of the damage from two previous quakes, catastrophe modeling company Eqecat said Tuesday.

The quake was the third major one to hit New Zealand in the last nine months. Eqecat said the three events in total caused anywhere from $15 billion to $23 billion in insured loss.

Had Monday’s quake occurred closer in time to the major February quake, losses would have been lesser, Eqecat said. However, the new quake will have caused fresh damage to already repaired buildings, the firm added.

New Zealand government officials said following the latest quake that parts of Christchurch will have to be abandoned.

(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)