Christchurch earthquake September 2010: One month on

It's hard to believe the earthquake happened a month ago. It all seems so long ago, and yet it's fresh in my mind too. We haven't had any noticeable aftershocks in a couple of days, but that doesn't mean they've stopped -- they're still going on and there's no guarantee that we won't have any more big ones. The three we had last Saturday night did some visible damage to the plasterboard in our living room, so I do hope we don't get any more like that, but nobody really knows.

Damaged plasterboard with the panels visibly out of alignment (ignore that bit to the left of the light switch)

The city feels largely back to normal, but of course it isn't normal at all. We're just doing better at looking past the broken buildings and the rubble. Many people still don't have basic sewage services in their homes, or even homes at all -- every day there are more stories of people packing their belongings and moving on. It must be very difficult to spend such a long time not even knowing if the house can ever be repaired, or even if the land can be built on again if the house is demolished.

Our City O-Tautahi -- an old council building, propped up from all angles

There are many businesses that can't reopen yet because they are beside or underneath something that has been damaged to the point of being dangerous. Ordinarily those dangerous buildings could be pulled down (although that is a huge job in itself), but the difficulty lies in deciding what to do with the ones that are a valuable part of the city's heritage. It could take years to make those right, but what happens in the meantime to the people who are affected by the very presence of a tottering mass of bricks?

The old Civic Building, with smashed and boarded-up windows

Just about everybody has minor damage to report even if there aren't any structural problems. As well as the damage to our plasterboard at home, there's clear evidence of it at my workplace and in just about everywhere else I've been. Of course it's hard to tell what cracks were there before the earthquake! But I'm sure most of the damage to concrete and brickwork is only a month old.

Emotionally I'm doing okay but not great. Loud or sudden noises make me flinch, and a rumbling lorry going past gets my attention now where before I wouldn't even have noticed it. It's hard to keep my mind from going back to September 4th and reliving the terror and uncertainty of the hours after 4.35am, and I don't know if it would be better to let myself think about it or to try and shove it away. Cycling to work through the city centre (my route takes me past many broken buildings) brings me to the verge of tears almost every day -- I feel wound up like a clock that is almost but not quite wound too far. All it will take is one more turn of that key and I'll go BOINNNG!!! and it will all come out.