Earthquake!

Saturday morning at 4.35am we were shaken out of bed with an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale.

It was pitch black as we gathered the kids up out of bed and guided them into the dining room under the table.

This whole time the house shook and rolled - it seemed to go on forever. We knew it was big and realised as soon as we felt the first jolt that "this was the big one".

We stayed under the table with blankets and torches for an hour and a half listening to the radio and thinking about our plan of attack when the light of day came.

Our good friends were at the airport when it happened waiting to catch a flight to Fiji so Al went round to their house to check on their sons and then drove to the airport to take them home again. The airport closed.

Once daylight came and we got dressed and stayed in our dining room most of the day. I cooked a big breakfast of Bacon, Eggs, Sausages and Baked beans on the BBQ outside - it felt so much better to be fed.

We had no electricity and no running water, couldn't flush the toilet, but we were all safe.

A building in central Christchurch
















The power returned to our house at 9.30am but most of Christchurch was still without. We turned on the TV and only then did we see the ernomity of what had occured in our city. Parts of it were levelled and buildings had crumbled and collapsed and other parts remained relatively unscathed.

We had a lot of fallen things round our house, a lot of broken glasses over the floor in the kitchen and all cupboards had to be opened with care as most were backed up with things that had moved and tumbled to the floor on opening.

We got at least 50 aftershocks of varying sizes yesterday, some over 5 on the richter scale and still getting some big shakes today. It still makes my skin prickle when another one strikes and worst of all is the noise that precedes the actual shake.

Last night it was hard for us to fall asleep, despite all being awake since 4.30am and each time another big aftershock came you were awake and contemplating getting to a door frame or the table again.

Daylight sure does make things a whole lot easier to cope with when the earth is still shaking and rolling.

If there is one thing I can suggest to anyone, it is to make sure you have

• Plenty of Bottled water
  
• torches
• battery operated radio
• keep your cellphone charged
• make sure you have a full gas bottle at all times!
• Matches
• alternative means of cooking - bbq or gas cooker
• alternative means of heating - gas heater
  

We were lucky we had all those things, but couldn't lay our hands on the portable radio in the dark so turned the car radio on and listened to that until the power came back on. We also didn't have an alternative means of heating as all ours relies on electricity. Luckily our home was warm and retained its heat. Also it was a very sunny warm day yesterday once the day dawned. We went out later in the day and bought an indoor gas heater should the need ever arise again!

You may think you have these things prepared but had we suffered any major damage to our home - could we have laid our hands on all those items should we have been stuck in one room? I think not, but lots of things have to go wrong for that to happen and we were very lucky that we could access the things we needed - many probably wouldn't have.

So to all the rellies outside of Christchurch and New Zealand concerned about us - we are fine. We are safe, we are boiling our water, we have plenty of food and we have electricity.

Oh and by the way - Happy Father's day!