still alive
Still alive and the cat is starting to venture out from under the bed more. Might even start flushing toilet soon (I'm holding off on that as last time we were told it was ok by the council people the civil defense was still saying absolutely not, so I'm being cautious, meanwhile still using rubbish bag, kitty litter and digging into garden or feeding worms)
Had a moment a few minutes ago where the cat was mauling my arm (in that friendly bored way cats have) and I was about to shake her off when I suddenly realised it meant she was feeling relaxed enough to want to play pounce, so I waved a toy around for her for a while :)
The aftershocks are still vicious and far too frequent. They are feeling much more vicious than the sets we got after the September one.
My local area got off really lightly (love being on a gravel bank) but huge chunks of the rest of the city has had liquifaction, which means large piles of very fine mud that turns into very find dust when it dries, streets that were covered in water where the surface (invisible under the muddy water but now visible as mud dries and is shovelled) buckled and in some cases huge sink holes... Which means large tracks of land that now has voids and instabilities that are going to have to be assessed and fixed over the next however long it takes.
Um, I'm figuring that everyone is aware of current casualty numbers and estimate, so you won't mind if I avoid blogging about that. Not in danger of forgetting that, and all the news agencies are probably reporting it :P.
We've lost a large chunk of our heritage buildings, include many old churches (damn good thing it wasn't Sunday morning or casualty numbers would have been much worse). From the footage and photos there are blocks and blocks of central city that will never look the same again (and that isn't including what will happen when the Grand Chancellor Hotel falls over and takes out a number of blocks of buildings).
It is a real mess out there.
Compare that to how normal it looks if I step out my door it is just surreal to listen to the radio reports or see the photos online, to walk a block from home and see the shattered shop fronts or to bike five minutes away and see bubbly road surface and shoved silt piles. Knowing that 10min bike ride would get me to the edge of the daytime cordon (less than 5min for the edge of the curfew one). Knowing that when the quake hit on Tuesday I was the width of one intersection away from collapsing shop facades and that only 5mins earlier I was in a supermarket.
Surreal.
But I'm ok. My neighbours are ok (although one got thrown across room and was in very worrying state for hours before we could get her checked for spinal injury). My extended social group roll call has been going well, with varying extents of property damage but as far as we can tell so far none missing or badly injured (although one is still very pregnant, starting on being overdue after today). Even my cat is ok, although she is a scaredy cat who jumps at any odd noise, hides under the bed a lot and probably isn't eating as much as she should... probably so that she can reduce having to go outside to eliminate (yes I have a litter tray, no she'd prefer to hold on for two days to go outside before she'll conceed to use it, fastidious critter :P)
Um, I might be rambling now. Just figured I should do you guys an update instead of just making notes on facebook :P
Had a moment a few minutes ago where the cat was mauling my arm (in that friendly bored way cats have) and I was about to shake her off when I suddenly realised it meant she was feeling relaxed enough to want to play pounce, so I waved a toy around for her for a while :)
The aftershocks are still vicious and far too frequent. They are feeling much more vicious than the sets we got after the September one.
My local area got off really lightly (love being on a gravel bank) but huge chunks of the rest of the city has had liquifaction, which means large piles of very fine mud that turns into very find dust when it dries, streets that were covered in water where the surface (invisible under the muddy water but now visible as mud dries and is shovelled) buckled and in some cases huge sink holes... Which means large tracks of land that now has voids and instabilities that are going to have to be assessed and fixed over the next however long it takes.
Um, I'm figuring that everyone is aware of current casualty numbers and estimate, so you won't mind if I avoid blogging about that. Not in danger of forgetting that, and all the news agencies are probably reporting it :P.
We've lost a large chunk of our heritage buildings, include many old churches (damn good thing it wasn't Sunday morning or casualty numbers would have been much worse). From the footage and photos there are blocks and blocks of central city that will never look the same again (and that isn't including what will happen when the Grand Chancellor Hotel falls over and takes out a number of blocks of buildings).
It is a real mess out there.
Compare that to how normal it looks if I step out my door it is just surreal to listen to the radio reports or see the photos online, to walk a block from home and see the shattered shop fronts or to bike five minutes away and see bubbly road surface and shoved silt piles. Knowing that 10min bike ride would get me to the edge of the daytime cordon (less than 5min for the edge of the curfew one). Knowing that when the quake hit on Tuesday I was the width of one intersection away from collapsing shop facades and that only 5mins earlier I was in a supermarket.
Surreal.
But I'm ok. My neighbours are ok (although one got thrown across room and was in very worrying state for hours before we could get her checked for spinal injury). My extended social group roll call has been going well, with varying extents of property damage but as far as we can tell so far none missing or badly injured (although one is still very pregnant, starting on being overdue after today). Even my cat is ok, although she is a scaredy cat who jumps at any odd noise, hides under the bed a lot and probably isn't eating as much as she should... probably so that she can reduce having to go outside to eliminate (yes I have a litter tray, no she'd prefer to hold on for two days to go outside before she'll conceed to use it, fastidious critter :P)
Um, I might be rambling now. Just figured I should do you guys an update instead of just making notes on facebook :P