Christchurch earthquake September 2010, day four

When I said yesterday that the aftershocks were smaller and further apart, I was wrong. We got slammed last night.

11:24pm 5.2 mag
11.38pm 4.0 mag
11.40pm 5.4
11.47pm 3.7
11.54pm 4.2
00.21am 4.7
00.47am 3.5
00.51am 3.9
01.39am 3.4
02.52am 3.1
03.14am 3.7
03.24am 5.4
04.17am 3.5
05.14am 3.9
05.17am 3.3
06.22am 3.5
08.14am 3.6

As you can see, there were three aftershocks overnight of magnitude 5.2 or higher. These are big enough to qualify as earthquakes in their own right -- any one of them would be newsworthy, and we got three, along with plenty of smaller ones. These aftershocks caused more damage to the buildings that have already been damaged, and led to a refuge centre being evacuated, the airport's domestic terminal being temporarily closed when cracks appeared, and damage appearing in houses that had seemed unscathed up until now.

We are very fortunate to still have no visible damage to our house. The garage is damaged, but it was damaged already and it's hard to tell what was caused by the earthquake and what was caused by subsidence years ago. When we bought the house the garage was already cracked and broken along both long walls because one end of the building had sunk a little, but that could have happened any time since it was built. Anyway, we now have a broken window pane along the side, and I'm pretty sure the gaps around that window frame are bigger than they used to be, courtesy of either last night or Saturday morning. But honestly the garage should really be knocked down and replaced anyway, and we should be grateful that it's still standing after the battering it received this weekend.

Skry and I both ended up at work yesterday, helping at the Civil Defence headquarters based in the Art Gallery. He works in IT support and is very useful to them, but I don't have any skills that are particularly in need right now. I thought I'd end up making cups of tea for people, but even that was all in hand! It's a very well run organisation and I have great admiration for those in charge and all the volunteers doing their civic duty.

It's strange to see the Art Gallery used for this purpose, and it's not perfect because of the lack of desk space and IT equipment such as printers and network ports, but it's working so far. And for a building with so much glass in its frontage, it has held together wonderfully. There is no visible damage at all.

Skry has been rostered to do more shifts but I don't think I'll be called in again. Last night I volunteered, but I am really not the most useful person to be in there. If something comes up that I can really help with I'll go back, but right now I'm leaving it to those better qualified.

Today has mostly been aftershock-free since this morning, but it always seems worse in the evenings and overnight. There is no reason that should be, that I know of anyway, but I'm not looking forward to tonight if the pattern holds. I suppose we'll find out.