Wow, what a wake up call (in more than one way)! Saturday 4:35am we were hit by a 7.1 earthquake. Although earthquakes can get a lot bigger (and NZ is due for a big one apparently), this was a frightening experience for the family.
We were all fast asleep when there was a bang then sideways / up and down shaking. Lots of loud banging and rattling. Almost immediately the power went off (I knew this because the residual street lighting went out - plunging us into blackness). Bumped around in the dark but we managed to gather the children under one of their solid bunks while the shaking continued in earnest for over a minute. Diminishing shaking continued for many minutes after. Children very upset. Once it settled down we made brief preparations to go up the hill (we are very low to the sea and we had no way of knowing if a Tsunami would occur). This mainly consisted of finding torches / first aid kit in case (where is it???), some jackets / rugs and fumbling around to get the electric garage door open manually (after clearing bikes out of the way that had fallen over). As we later heard on the radio the earthquake was just inland of the city so a Tsunami was very unlikely and it was safe to return home (not that children wanted to!).
We were very lucky, as our house is relatively modern (built to NZ earthquake code), and only had a few cups / ornaments broken here and there, and relatively minor damage to hot water cylinder plumbing. Also fortunately it appears no one was killed in Christchurch. It was lucky that we got power back on about lunch time, although had to shut off water due to plumbing.
Mid morning I went in to inspect our office in town and although our office was Ok, I was surprised at the amount of damage in town. Much of the town was cordoned off and I had to walk quite a few blocks to get there but took my camera with me to take some snaps. There are worse off areas but this gives an idea of some of the damage (note these are not particularly well composed - more snaps really):
Photos of Christchurch earthquake
Anyway the main reason I am writing this, is that this has been quite a wake up call for us (and most friends are saying the same). We should be better prepared for these sort of things because they can and do happen. What if we were without power and water for a week or more? What if someone was injured? How do we contact / check up on extended family members? And so on.
Continued after shakes keep reminding us to improve our plan.
Originally posted by Arpe 
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