WELLINGTON, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Buildings in the New Zealand capital have come through a series of strong quakes at the weekend "relatively unscathed," Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said Monday.
An initial inspection of almost 2,500 buildings in the central business district by council building inspectors and engineers found about 35 buildings were externally damaged, Wade-Brown said in a statement.
Most of the damage was minor mainly broken windows and cracked or broken masonry resulting in fallen debris and potential danger to passers-by.
Masonry and pieces of glass from some older window frames were still falling off the buildings in some parts of the city center, but these were being cordoned off.
All commuter rail services resumed in the city on Monday afternoon, following checks of bridges, tunnels and other rail infrastructure.
The government's Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences revised its aftershock probabilities for central New Zealand, saying there was an 87 percent probability of a magnitude-5 to 5.9 aftershock in the next seven days, compared with 99 percent on Sunday, and a 19 percent probability of a magnitude-6 or higher aftershock, compared with 30 percent on Sunday.
For the next 12 months, the figures showed a 99 percent probability of a magnitude-5 to 5.9 aftershock and a 39 percent probability of a magnitude-6 or higher aftershock.
The government's GeoNet monitoring service said the quakes were centered about 30 km east of Seddon, at the top of the South Island, with the two powerful tremors on Sunday being a 5.8- magnitude quake about 19 km deep at 7:17 a.m. and a 6.5-magnitude quake about 17 km deep at 5:09 p.m., followed by magnitude-5.2 minutes later.
Hundreds of aftershocks, some of them strong, continued to shake Wellington and workers were advised to stay away from the central business district.
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