The raw power of nature

[Ja-Kha'jay]

There has recently been a large earthquake in New Zealand, more specifaccly in the city where myself and TOYB live. We are under a lot of stress cause my seemingly endless aftershocks. For more information see here:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/canterbury-earthquake/

The inital 7. earthquake was a hell of a shock, and everyone is left numb, and we've have a large number of 4.8-5.4 magnitude aftershocks, so we are a bit distracted.

[morcroft]

Good to know you're OK there. Hope everything settles down soon.

[Ysne]

I have been following that in the news online. It looks like that earthquake created a new faultline in the earth's crust.

I'm hope you two are ok.

[Koniption]

It's great to hear that you made it through in one piece.

Did you personally suffer a lot of structural damage to your home/apartment where you reside? I hope not.

I heard the quake was also shocking, because the ground movement was drastically different than usual quakes - they said it was "rolling like marbles" or something like that (the ground shaked in a circular motion?).

Koniption

[Deeza]

Good to hear from you, JKJ! I'd already heard from TOYB, but I was wondering if you were OK...

[AnImpatientFan]

Jeez, that really looked like a big earthquake.

Apparently it was as powerful as the Haiti quake.

[Ja-Kha'jay]

Yeah it was, though we were very lucky, since it happened at 4.35 am, a few hours earlier and it would have been worse. We had only 2 people with serious injuries, and one death from a heart attack. which is bloody lucky when you consider about 350,000 people live in Christchurch city alone. also new zealand has better building standards than Haiti, still we've lost or are going to lose quite a few historic buildings. the CBD was cordoned off from the public for days afterward, and now only a small part is closed. they even brought in the army to help. A couple of suburbs got hit really hard. I got in and took some photos before the CBD was cordened off. these were taken about 3 hours after the quake:

http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb249...arthquake/

As for me, i was insanely lucky. My flat is made of a timber frame and a polystyrene composite, very light. not even the concrete pad has cracked or anything. We lost a couple of glasses. However the damage to other parts of the neighbourhood was pretty bad. One of my workmates who lives around the corner had his chimney come through the ceiling. apparently he'd been playing xbox at the time. a pretty hairy moment. I'd only just got into bed at that time, good thing i turned down overtime at work, that would have been really freaky. We have these gigantic chandeliers hanging over the gaming floor, and the last place you want to be is underneath those buggers. Seems thats the fastest the main gaming floor has every cleared out.

Anyway many people are suffering emotionally because of the earthquake, and many people are on edge, myself included, as we are still getting reasonable aftershocks. However i just want to get settled back into a normal routine. Aftershocks are expected to last for weeks.

My sister was not so lucky. She lives in Kaiapoi, one of the worst affected areas. This is a small town just outside of christchurch, and the park across the road, and the one by the river got torn to shreds, there are great big gaping holes in the ground, cracks in roads and buildings, and they lost a historic deparment store which has been operating since 1871. The center of town is completely closed down. She's unable to live in her house, as they have no water or sewerage, though they do have power. So she's fled to her boyfriend's mum who lives in Rolleston, which oddly enough is where most of the aftershocks originate from. And her boyfriend could not hack the quakes anymore, and fled to Australia three days ago.

My brother, noone has seen or heard from him in days, he's blatently ignoring me and my folks, and we are all sick with worry.

Quite a few of my workmates lived in dallington, bexley, new brighton and avonside, and these were the worst affected areas in the city. the whole lot of them were built on damp sandy soil, and so when an earthquake happens, the soil becomes like a fluid (called liquefaction) and so many roads, houses and footpaths cannot be used. many do not yet have sewerage, and the council has provided portaloos every few houses (same in kaiapoi).

And now begins the clean up. a lot of buildings need to be demolished, and everyone os still a bit numb. It's just a shock to everyone, we were completely unprepared. We only rarely got any quakes in christchurch, and we all thought we were sufficiently far enough from the alpine fault to keeps us safe. but it just goes to show that quakes can happen anywhere at any time. this quake occured on a fault that had not ruptured for 16,000 years, so long that geologists did not even know it was there, and some of the aftershocks are coming off even more previuosly-unknown faults. A good little website to demonstrate the quakes is this one, which displays the depth and origin on a map of canterbury, scrolling along the side are the date, time and magnitude. Let it run and see exactly whats bee going on:

http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/

See how much I'm babbling, i rarely make a post this long. I'm just a bit on edge and anxious, understandable given the circumstances. If anyone is intersted, i can give a blow by blow account of my first couple of hours after the quake.

[Catlemur]

Holy shit...We have earthquakes here too but I do not remember anything of that scale.

[Lady Nerevar]

Glad to hear ya'll are safe, thats some serious stuff. On the upside, you now have great references for Elsweyr ruins

[Ysne]

I'm glad you are ok. I know this is very scary for you.