The Ground Opens Up In Front Of You
Okay, so I will admit that the title is a little dramatic. Earthquakes
are an extremely powerful and destructive force, but usually we are watching the destruction at a distance, on the television or we pick up the news feed online. It’s quite a bit different when it hits home – literally. My city of Christchurch, New Zealand, was lucky to have come out of this with only a few injuries. Unfortunately, one death did occur, one man was hit by a chimney, and a few elderly folks had heart attacks.
As of right now, I am writing this blog post not from my own house, but from a house we're currently renting. Our house was condemned due to a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hitting my area. It was a pretty awful experience to say the least, but as I mentioned, we feel lucky to be alive. A few days after the earthquake, we cleared the house out and moved everything to a storage unit to prevent looters from getting their hands on our belongings. It fantastic that my parents found a place to stay so quickly, and that insurance will take care of damages to our previous home. I'm nearly 20 and will be flatting soon, so I'm packed to flat, but it's nice to know that I have a house to stay in until I move on.
At approximately 4.35am, Saturday the 4th September, 2010, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck my city.
This is the first
big quake I've lived through, previous ones have been tiny in size and unnoticeable. Even then, we haven't had an earthquake in a long time. My girlfriend and I were peacefully sleeping, when it felt like the earth was being pulled apart. We were
literally bounced out of bed and ran for the door-frame. It's quite amazing how our instincts guided us, and how quickly I can wake up from a deep slumber. I'm the kind of guy who can sleep through a loud alarm when I actually need to be at a lecture! Thankfully we were all unharmed, though I had smashed my knee pretty hard into the door-frame trying to make my way through the darkness - the power had cut, obviously.
We got outside, and camped in the darkness through many aftershocks until it was light and we could truly survey the damage. My street looked like a war zone. There was muddy flooding in the cul-de-sac, large cracks had broken the earth in two, and my next-door neighbor’s house had split
in two. You heard correctly, check out the photo to the side. One side is on a complete lean, you can actually look through the split and see the fence on the other side! The residents there had to climb out the window because none of the doors and windows would open. As I discovered hours later, my house didn't fair too well either. The house had separated from the footpath with a huge trench, cracks where you could get your foot stuck. (yes, I got my foot stuck in one.) It spread across the concrete like something out of a film. It was all pretty dramatic at the time, people were running outside and I heard murmurs that the bridge had been damaged. Camera in hand, I took off through the mud and silt to check it out. The silt covered front lawns and neighbor's crowded outside in dressing gowns surveying the damage. The bridge I had crossed so many times in the past few years looked like someone had sliced the front with a giant guillotine. It could have been much worse, the bridge could have collapsed. Even in the state it's in, I knew it wasn't to be crossed any time soon. Not long after I had reached the bridge, a police car turned up telling us to clear away from the bridge so that it could be barricaded. I was surprised that they had arrived on the scene so swiftly.
It Could Have Been Worse
My girlfriend, Amber, and I took off, and I stayed with her at her parents’ house for several days. My parents were fine with us leaving. There was little more I could do on the scene, and I felt it was for the best to spread out. They mentioned that they would stay with family friends, thus it made sense to not burden them with a third person. The two of us had to walk through the city to get there as no buses were running, and it was interesting to witness the damage first-hand. Strangely, a lot of places were
unharmed, as though there was no earthquake at all. Most of my friend’s places suffered no damage, though one friend who lived in the city had to evacuate his building as it was well and truly condemned. A photo of his building was featured on
BBC News. Recently going back to my own house, the cracks and damage has become much grander than what you see in the photos. My house is leaning precariously now. It's unstable to walk in it. Too bad really; I liked living there.
I don't actually believe in miracles, not usually anyway. But it's a wonder that no one actually died from the 'quake. Put it in perspective: the Haiti Earthquake was actually
smaller than the one we just experienced. Why did so many die in that disaster while we had just one fatality? The living conditions in Haiti seriously affected the outcome of that disaster. Christchurch city was built to withstand more of a beating. Still, we were very lucky that the earthquake occurred at 4.30 in the morning. If it were in the day-time, I'm sure many would have died from falling debris.
My University took a fair amount of damage, thus I was given two extra weeks of holiday. Therefore I got more time off to lie back and spend more time typing away on the internet. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?
Click here to see more photos.
There are no comments. Get the conversation started!
