Saturday, September 4, 2010

Christchurch Quake


Yesterday morning a 7.1 earthquake struck Christchurch City. My family and friends have all been so lucky loosing only small items that could easily be sacrificed. last night was all aftershocks,it got to the point where the motion became gentle as we all became immune to each hit. However i do find it rather ironic that 30 min after the very first wave, National NZ radio plays 'Good Vibrations' by the Beach boys ;)


Christchurch's inner city has been closed until Wednesday as well as all local schools as they still need to be accessed for damage. This is just awesome considering I have NCEA exams coming up (National New Zealand Qualifications) and our mocks were due to start on Wednesday.

My mum and I went driving to visit an aunt and on the way we spotted a massive,super size brick chimney that had gone crashing down on top of some poor family's car (a sturdy 4wd,,,, not so sturdy anymore). my stomach dropped , our side of town had had minor damages that would just involve a lot of clean up , not until this point did i realise how disastrous the quake has really been.


The last 24 hours have been very strange. As a city Christchurch has been extremely lucky most of the city now has power or has hold of a generator. Water is now running in some parts too. (We have to either bleach or boil to make safe), and no deaths! In fact in the last 24hours more babies have been born than any other day in the city before , we now have 23 new residents! Pets are returning to homes and phone calls are being made across the country, our family alone has been contacted by friends and family from all over the globe. Australia,Taiwan and even America (who funnily enough, had heard no such news of the 7.1 quake that didn't effect their country).

Near by neighbours have had extreme flooding and those horrible,smelly sand volcano things cover lawns,roads and house doorsteps. All I remember of the quake was it hitting at 4:30 am ,sitting up and thinking 'wow an earthquake' and as i always sleep through the small ones thinking nothing of it ,, i was kinda like 'yay i finally get to wake up to one!' then I hear my family calling me from the hallway,all clinging to door jams shouting to me to see if I was alright. I dash to the hall to join them then all i can remember thinking is 'shit I'm not wearing a bra!' so i really wasn't that phased.


My 14 year old brother on the other hand soon had all the guns out and was ready to take on any looters. (we may have had to calm him down a bit). Although he was on to something , looters were arrested in the city for taking small items that had been thrown out of shops during the shock.

My mum is a nurse who works in mental health so she went down to see if all the patients were ok. My Grandmother was staying in her town house and none of the family had been able to get hold of her, my step dad drove up to check on her he stood knocking at the door and when she finally opened it she was right as rain, had felt the quake, driven her car out of the garage, then gone back to bed.                                  

   Over all it's been a very eventful weekend, I wish everyone luck in the cleanup and hope anyone who has suffered injuries is well. Good luck to those who are still with out power or water and I really do hope these aftershocks stop soon (there was one right there). They are really starting to piss me off.

I will be sure to post further updates.

Thats me.

2 comments:

  1. great news dear neice i tried to ring you but your line was down. i rang aunt noreen and she was ok too . she told me about the flooding from the water table rising! waht are the sandy smelly volcaano? comp stuff at presentglad u r all okxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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  2. Thanks for thinking of us :) yeah the power was out for a while, sand volcanoes EVERYWHERE!

    :D

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