A shaky weekend! The great 7.1 quake of 2010 ;-)

Now that was a crazy weekend! An earthquake centered 5-10 km away that hit 7.1 on the Richter scale! It trashed a fair deal of Christchurch infrastructure and messed up most people houses, either superficially or structurally.

This is our account as written by Sarah…

As mentioned above, we live pretty close to the epicenter. We’re on a rural 5 acre block in a wooden house. We are all fine. Pretty scary experience. Jackson has been fine throughout. He calls earthquakes "earth cracks" – which is probably quite accurate when you see the state of some of the suburbs effected. As we were so close to the epicentre of the main quake it was loud and violent. I was woken first by a loud rumble and then the shaking started. I grabbed Julian and said "Julian, earthquake!" we both leapt out of bed and stood in doorway for a sec and then I ran for Jackson. Our hearts were racing – Julian said he was waiting for a heart attack. Jackson was still asleep but I picked him up out of bed and ran for the doorway. He was half asleep and said "mummy, that’s really loud rain". Jackson and I stayed in the doorway huddled under a blanket for about an hour. Julian was running back and forward checking things and calling friends to make sure they were ok.

At one point, Julian was out on the lawn calling a friend Kate (was home alone) to check in on her and saw the whole house shake!

I cant remember hearing things fall but when we got a torch -all the books had fallen out off shelves through the house. Our bedroom draws had fallen flat on the floor (smashing the tv that was on top). The fridge had moved, and all the pantry was all over the floor. The office was a mess with computers and screens all over the place. The huge concrete water tank on the tower also shifted a bit.

Power went out immediately it’s only just been turned back on (after nearly 2 days). The big quake lasted about 40 secs – but strong aftershocks came thick and fast for the following few hours and they have continued until today, although the intensity has weaken and they are much less frequent. At the moment we can’t actually tell what is an aftershock and what is movement from the gusts of wind. Oh! Forgot to mention – we now have 130kph gale force winds hitting us too… 🙁

Yesterday was spent making sure friends and neighbours were safe. Because we had limited access to the outside world (short bursts on transistor radio)we didn’t have any idea of the extent of damage had occurred in Christchurch city until last night when we watched the 6pm news down at the local petrol station. It was a small TV powered by a 12v car battery and an inverter (it was a real community affair). The community spirit down here has been amazing. Everyone is mucking in and helping out. We had to do emergency dashes to service stations for essentials, ie: water, food etc.

Last night was pretty rough with no power and pretty violent aftershocks. The adrenaline had worn off and all that was left was fear. Every time there was an aftershock we would wonder if it was going to continue. None were more than a few secs but some really shook the place. There were about 20 last night.

We went to check up on friends in Rangiora today. Kaiapoi is a disaster zone. It was shocking to see and it actually made us realize how powerful the quake was and how fortunate we were to come our relatively undamaged. Our heart goes out to the residents that have lost their homes. Christchurch central is also a real mess. It’s very sad. Earthquakes last seconds but the cleanup will take months.

However, we both are totally impressed with how the city has pulled together. John Key, Bob Parker and the emergency teams are doing a fantastic job of supplying resources, acting fast to repair core services and reassuring people they’ll help pay for the damage. It’s a great city!

So we’re ok. Julian’s taking a few days off to check everything over and then we just need the aftershocks to settle. Then back to normal 🙂