Why, yes, the Earth did move for me
A few of you have been wondering how close I was to the 7.1 magnitude earthquake which wobbled much of New Zealand early on Saturday morning.
Well, it certainly woke me up (4:35am, no less) and our house creaked and groaned and swayed for about half a minute. When it was over, I commented to my mother, jeanlucbev, on whether that was a not-so-bad house shaker, or if we had just felt the fringe effects of a real doozy of a quake somewhere else.
The answer came with a panicked phone call from my aunt in Christchurch at 6am. Her house was pitch black, without power, water or, until then, phone. Much of the content of her home was on the floor, including a TV and smashed items from her china cabinet.
We live over 300km away from the epicentre (which was about 30km from Christchurch), so we we much less affected, but nearly all of our extended family lives in Christchurch and they've all been affected in some way.
Because we New Zealanders essentially live on a bunch of faultlines and are somewhat earthquake prone, we have fairly strict building codes which mean that our modern buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes (to an extent). A lot of the damage this quake caused was to heritage buildings - and much of Christchurch's history is now gone.
Um, these pics are ~borrowed~ from The NZ Herald and TVNZ.
This is (was?) Homebush Station, 154 years old, and used in the filming of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
A room with a view...
A wobbly bridge.
Someone's not-so-fresh Subaru. The Trekkie in me is yelling, "Emergency Medical Hologram!"
There are more galleries of photos here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Scientists are saying that the magnitude, depth and proximity to a major city are all comparable to the Haiti quake. BUT -- NZ is not densely populated, the majority of Christchurch's buildings were built to earthquake protection specifications, and our quake happened at a time when most people were in bed and not out in the streets being hit by falling bricks and debris.
So... we're okay, my family's okay, and Christchurch will be okay - eventually.
Well, it certainly woke me up (4:35am, no less) and our house creaked and groaned and swayed for about half a minute. When it was over, I commented to my mother, jeanlucbev, on whether that was a not-so-bad house shaker, or if we had just felt the fringe effects of a real doozy of a quake somewhere else.
The answer came with a panicked phone call from my aunt in Christchurch at 6am. Her house was pitch black, without power, water or, until then, phone. Much of the content of her home was on the floor, including a TV and smashed items from her china cabinet.
We live over 300km away from the epicentre (which was about 30km from Christchurch), so we we much less affected, but nearly all of our extended family lives in Christchurch and they've all been affected in some way.
Because we New Zealanders essentially live on a bunch of faultlines and are somewhat earthquake prone, we have fairly strict building codes which mean that our modern buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes (to an extent). A lot of the damage this quake caused was to heritage buildings - and much of Christchurch's history is now gone.
Um, these pics are ~borrowed~ from The NZ Herald and TVNZ.
This is (was?) Homebush Station, 154 years old, and used in the filming of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
A room with a view...
A wobbly bridge.
Someone's not-so-fresh Subaru. The Trekkie in me is yelling, "Emergency Medical Hologram!"
There are more galleries of photos here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Scientists are saying that the magnitude, depth and proximity to a major city are all comparable to the Haiti quake. BUT -- NZ is not densely populated, the majority of Christchurch's buildings were built to earthquake protection specifications, and our quake happened at a time when most people were in bed and not out in the streets being hit by falling bricks and debris.
So... we're okay, my family's okay, and Christchurch will be okay - eventually.