Well today has been a long and eventful day that started at 4.35am with a rude wake up from the planet. AKA the Christchurch earthquake, 7.1 on the Richter Scale.
I have never been in a quake like this before. Banging, crashing and roaring and really difficult to stand up and get to a door frame. Power went out immediately so all we had to reference was the massive noise, shaking and crashing sounds around the house. The shaking went on for ages however we managed to get together the tent, clothes, food, cat cage (although cat was elusive!) and some bedding, get the truck out and pile in to tune in to the radio to find out that we were only 20km from the epicentre.
Went back into the house and then an outside survey about 7ish. Amazingly, the house seems fine, no cracks in the roof, tiles, bricks or concrete. Guess that's why you live in a new house that has the highest earthquake specs! The other new houses round the neighbourhood have faired similarly. I understand that some houses in Burnham township and the army camp have been mothered with walls, ceilings and windows blown out.
We've been lucky with damage inside too although a lovely glass plate of mine was smashed. Otherwise, 1 shot glass fell out of the cupboard and smashed to smithereens. Books off the bookshelves, speakers fell over, pictures everywhere on the wall, dvd's on the floor, tv monitor fell off, papers everywhere. Still, having sold most of our stuff there was little to fall over! From the "how" files, my phrenology head fell 2m to the ground and was completely unharmed :)
Power was out until about 5.30pm - amazing job from the power company to get that back on so quickly. Water is apparently contaminated so all drinking water is being boiled although we still have supply. Phones have been a bit flaky although we realised we have no non-powered phones so couldn't use our landline with the power out! Mobile internet etc has been intermittent however all going now.
The quakes have continued constantly all day with a noticeable one every 3-5minutes. It's like being in a storm with the ongoing booming and shaking. Still, we're lucky. There's a hell of a lot of carnage in the city centre, especially in the older buildings.
We look forward to the evening...
The Rose
Man I have family over there and was shocked when this happened. The clever guy over at http://www.forecastfortomorrow.com forecasted that there are these bigger geographcial events like this coming. He called the stockmarket crash back in 2008 also, gold rising and a few other things, and has a very intresting site. 2010 - 2012 is sure going to be and intresting time period ey?.
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