The Christchurch Earthquake - are we in an American block buster movie?

I haven’t been updating my blog in a long time. I have SO much to write about...I am now a married woman (that took some work to accomplish) and we have had many interesting trips since I made my last blog update.

I simply can’t start writing about all these things since I first need to mention the Christchurch earth quake which hit our house on Saturday morning of the 4 September at 4:35 am (This when a few clocks have stopped around town).

Charlie and I were sound asleep and woke up by the house moving and making lots of noises. When we went to bed the night before, a bad southerly front hit and for a split second we thought it might be the strong winds that woke us up. I recognised the movements though from a small earthquake that shook me in August 2003...-It’s an earth quake! The house was shaking and rocking side to side like we were on a ship. We looked up at the wooden beams that held the ceiling together and just hoped that they would hold up. The rocking seemed to continue forever (apparently less than a minute the reports say).
During the quake, which proved to be a pretty big one by any means, 7.1 on the Richter scale, I was really scared and I felt very helpless against nature’s forces. We pulled open the curtains and saw a big light flash over the city that was followed by a blackening of a large part of Christchurch. We were also out of power. I happened to have a small head torch handy and we quickly got dressed, put on some better head lights, Charlie started filling the bath tub in case we would run out of water. I felt pretty useless and often just felt paralysed. In case we needed to evacuate the house, we packed some warm clothes, sleeping bags, tents, cooking gear etc. We simply didn’t know if we would get hit by an even bigger after shake. There were many and not far between. Apparently a few of them were around 5.0. Charlie inspected the house from the outside but couldn’t see any damage to it. Despite the heavy shaking, we only had a couple of picture frames that had fallen over, nothing else. We were certainly hoping it would stay that way.

Without any power, we made a few cups of tea on the gas stove and tried to relax. People sounded very shocked on the radio I remember a police woman with a very nervous laughter. Charlie managed to catch a few news snippets from BBC and saw that we had hit world news. That was very surreal!

Once we felt like we couldn’t do more, we attempted to sleep again. It was rather difficult as there were more of the heavy after shakes giving the house a hard time. Prior to an after shake, you could hear a rumbling sound coming closer. It was an awful noise and I just hoped it wouldn’t be another biggie.

The weather forecast for the Saturday was sunny. Charlie had planned to go skiing with some friends whilst myself and Berit had planned a long training day ahead of our Spring Challenge at the end of September. The ski field in Craigeburn was open and with the amount of snow that we had received throughout the week, it was bound to be a fab day up there. The main problem for Charlie was that Mark could not access his ski gear in his garage since the automatic door opener required power. In MacGyver style, Mark made some type of elongated hook from a coat hanger that enabled him to break into his own garage. He made Charlie very happy when he called to say that it was a go ahead!

The guys left hoping to make it to the snow, but not knowing what the road to Arthur’s Pass would be like. Maybe there would be electricity lines across the road? They were only really nervous about having a ski accident since all the hospitals were in high demand to handle victims of the quake. It would have been embarrassing to show up with a ski accident at the same time. The risk was pretty low and it was worth a chance.

A lot of people drove into the city to check out the mess the earth quake had caused. I wanted to stay out of it and thought that sticking to our Port Hills training day is probably the most sensible idea.

When I cycled over to Berit, I noticed that all neighbours said hallo, something they usually don’t do in half-snobby Mt Pleasant. A natural disaster seems to bring people together too. Berit and I never saw any real visual impacts from the earth quake until we spotted Castle Rock from the Summit Road. The iconic rock formation looked different somehow. We then noticed that a gigantic piece of the top rock formation had plummeted into the Horatane valley below (not across any houses or roads fortunately). A boulder that was much bigger than a man, was now located below Castle Rock together with plenty of rock debris. We had planned to repeat a rogaining map in this exact area, but this sight quickly made us change our plans.

We ran down to Lyttelton, trying to avoid areas with exposed rocks above us, and were happily surprised to see that Lyttelton Coffee co-op took coffee orders. In Lyttelton, a few older buildings showed signs of major structural damage, for example the Harbour Light theatre, the Empire Hotel and a few churches. These buildings were caught off by police since they could collapse any time. Most residential houses looked OK. Only the chimneys often had to pay the price of the quakes.

Once I got back home in the afternoon, the power was back and I could for the first time comprehend the extent of the damage the quakes had caused across Christchurch and north Canterbury. Internet pictures were pretty surreal as they showed some of the most iconic old buildings in the city in shatters. It was amazing to hear that no one died as a direct result of the event. All the people I know have got off lightly. There are of course areas that are badly affected in various ways, some got hit by flooding due to burst water mains and sewage pipes. It was not a pretty sight for the people in New Brighton. Other areas can clearly witness the forces behind the earth quake. Roads have been teared up and some buildings have been sinking into the ground.

The airport was up and running by 1 pm the same day. The vast majority of the city centre got electricity back within the first 24 hr. Things seemed to be under control and it was nice to see.

I had to leave Chch on the Sunday as I had groundwater sampling to undertake in Rarotonga. It was nice to be escaping the mess, but also very uneasy to leave Charlie and all friends so shortly after the main disaster event. Even whilst I was boarding the plane, we felt more quakes. I just wished they would stop.

Throughout the 4 days I have been away, Chch has felt plenty of aftershocks. This is from the local newspaper:
Many people are very stressed, sleep deprived and worried about the future. Property owners are trying to understand the damage made to their houses and properties. It is often hard to understand the true impact from the earth quake. How will farmer count as their property if the land has moved?
I could write a lot more..but time to stop here.