A Night to Remember

This morning at 4.35 Canterbury was hit by a series of earthquakes. The first shock was a 5.4 magnitude quake which woke me and 5 seconds later the main quake hit with a magnitude of 7.1. The noise was deafening and our house began shaking rapidly side to side.

I shouted for everyone to 'get under the bed'. James was sleeping next to me so I grabbed him and pushed him under. When he complained I just said 'earthquake' a couple of times and he settled down.

The main quake lasted for about a minute during which the power went out. After a while we retreated to the kitchen and hid under the table. That didn't feel secure enough so we pulled the hall table into the centre of the hallway and sheltered underneath with a camp light. When I made the table I never dreamed I would end up using it as an earthquake shelter. Funny that it is a 'Shaker' table.

At this point we had no idea what was happening. We knew there had been a large earthquake but didn't know where or how big. I was concerned that this might be the 'big one' and about the possibility of a tsunami (though I didn't mention this to Tracy!). We could not get service on our mobiles but we listened to the radio on Tracy's MP3 player. The initial reports were that the epicentre was about 20km inland from us so a tsunami was unlikely. We spent about an hour under the table listening to the radio as a series of aftershocks passed through. Some of these were quick, violent ones that shook the house and some were long slow rolling motions. It felt like being on a plane flying through turbulence.

Eventually we decided to go back to bed. The aftershocks were still coming but nothing like that first one. Looking out of the living room window everything was so quiet and still. All the power was out and the milky way stretched across the sky. It was actually quite peaceful. I think the adrenalin was wearing off.