Christchurch earthquake September 2010

So, I have survived my first earthquake -- the first one I was consciously aware of, anyway. And boy was it a doozy. Christchurch was hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake at 4.35a.m. today, jerking me out of a sound sleep and scaring the wits out of me too. As soon as I woke up I knew what was happening, because the signs were quite distinctive: the whole house was swaying and shaking, and things were crashing to the ground in every room. There was no way this could be mistaken for a burglary, or even a car crash outside.

It felt like the initial earthquake went on for half a minute or so, although I can't be sure about that. I was in the corner of our bedroom which seemed to be a relatively safe place, so I stayed there rather than dashing for the nearest doorway. Advice about where to position oneself during an earthquake seems to be conflicting -- should it be under a doorway or towards the outside walls of the house? The doorway might be more stable, but if the whole thing comes crashing down there's a better chance of being dug out if you're near the edge. Anyway, I stayed where I was and that was fine. We don't have much in the bedroom that is likely to fall down, so at least there weren't things falling around me or on top of me. The heater fell face-down onto the carpet and my makeup danced to the edge of the dresser and plummeted to the ground, but that was all. When the quake stopped I turned on the light, grabbed my dressing gown, and went to see what damage had been done in the living room.

I could hardly get through the living room door because there was a heap of CDs lying on the other side of it, topped off by the bookcase they had been stored in.

The television was okay! I had been sure it would get smashed, but a few months ago we bought a really sturdy entertainment unit with a wide top shelf, and thankfully that was enough to keep things steady. But the DVDs and their bookshelf had both toppled over, taking the ironing board with them.

There was some other minor damage -- a pot plant upside down on the carpet, baking trays on the kitchen floor -- but we really got off very lightly.

Just as I was assessing this, another quake struck. This one was a mere 5.3, but still very frightening. I didn't know if it was a proper earthquake or just an aftershock. Anyway, it wasn't enough to send anything else flying, so I calmed myself and continued around the house. The only other real destruction was in the study, where my big heavy bookcase had fallen down, breaking the short bookcase opposite it as it fell. We were very lucky that it missed all the expensive stuff in that room and took out the crappy piece of flat-pack furniture instead!

You may detect a theme here, and you'd be right. We have far too many unstable bookcases in our house. These all need to be screwed to the wall as soon as possible; if we'd done that already the house probably wouldn't have shown any damage at all.

Structurally things appear to be fine. I'm no expert, but I took a walk around the house and couldn't see anything that looked different from how it used to. We didn't lose power or water, and the sewage lines aren't obviously damaged. There have been aftershocks regularly ever since, for the last seven hours, but I'm hoping they will tail off. They make me feel frightened and seasick, and they scare the chickens.

The rest of Christchurch didn't get off so lightly. There has been terrible damage to some of the older buildings in the city centre. You can view photos here and read the current news articles here. I haven't ventured out of our street but I'm sure I'll see plenty of damage on my way to work on Monday.

That's all for now. I will blog more on this subject over the next couple of days.