Wellington can take little comfort from the way its buildings came through the July and August earthquakes, says Christchurch engineer Brendon Bradley.



Dr Bradley, who is leading a detailed analysis of how 10 Wellington buildings responded to the quakes, said the magnitude 6.6 Cook Strait quakes subjected the CBD to just one seventh of the shaking that Christchurch experienced in 2010 and 2011.



He also dismissed suggestions that Wellington buildings were built to a higher standard than Christchurch's.



''If anyone believes that Wellington buildings are significantly better than Christchurch's, [they are] misguided.



''I would say, roughly speaking, you would expect to see a similar response in Wellington buildings as you saw in Christchurch and obviously in Wellington you have significantly more high rise buildings.



''Some high rises in Christchurch performed relatively well and some of them didn't and I would expect to see the same sort of thing in Wellington.



He did not accept the view that Wellington was better prepared and he warned that a quake on the Wellington fault could be expected to be more severe than those that hit Christchurch.



Dr Bradley also believed Wellington could have a number of buildings like Christchurch's CTV building, which collapsed, killing 115 people.



''It is clear there are a number of buildings throughout New Zealand that are like that so I assume there are a decent number of buildings like that in Wellington."



The vulnerability of many buildings around New Zealand was uncertain.

Dr Bradley is leading research on information gathered from instruments that measured the movement of 10 Wellington buildings in the Seddon quakes.



These included the Majestic Centre, Wellington Hospital, the BNZ Centreport building, a Victoria University student hostel and the Thorndon motorway overbridge.



Up to 40 instruments were installed in some of these buildings. Data retrieved from similar instruments installed in two Christchurch buildings had already provided lessons for the engineering profession.



The data, showing how the building moved, will be used to test assumptions about how they were expected to behave.



The way buildings move in an earthquakes was very complex and incorrect assumptions made by designers could be catastrophic.



Provisional results were expected to be available within two or three months.



Dr Bradley said the installation of movement gauges in buildings could save businesses a lot of time and money.



After a quake it could take days for engineers to check them out but with instrumentation building owners could find out in five minutes whether the movement was within a certain threshold and determine whether it could be reoccupied immediately.



It could take $10,000 to $40,000 to install the instruments and it could pay for itself immediately if people could get back to work a day or two earlier, said Dr Bradley.