| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Sean |
Posted - 09/04/2010 : 23:22:18
I've had a couple of people ask me about this quake and as to whether I was affected or not (  ) so I thought I'd update here.
I live a few hundred km from the epicentre and slept right through it (it was 4.35am), my town suffered no damage at all.
I have plenty of friends and relatives in Christchurch, and most got away with only very minor damage (minor cracks etc) and no injuries.
One was not so lucky, he was woken when his new 42" plasma TV fell over and smashed. He got up and was thrown back on bed. Then he got up again and was thrown against the wall. His front door is jammed shut, but the major damage was to his swimming pool, it was lifted 15cm out of the ground and is probably written off.
Our building code is pretty rigorous with respect to earthquake safety (we're known as "The Shaky Isles"). Fortunately most houses are wooden or at least have wooden frames. Most of the building damage in Christchurch was to 100-year-old commercial brick buildings with stone/masonry facades. I think the fact that nobody was killed in this quake came down to the fact that there were none of the poor-building-induced pancake collapses that you find in developing countries, and the fact that it was at 4.35am and people had gone home. If this had hit six hours earlier the city centre would have been humming with the usual Friday-night partying and it seems extremely likely that somebody would have ended up under a pile of bricks.
It seems that hundreds (perhaps thousands?) of brick chimneys (commonly the 'weak' point of a house) collapsed and went through people's roofs. Some were lucky to escape, the beds that they were sleeping in are covered with bricks but through good luck they escaped with only minor injuries for the most part. As far as I know there are only two in hospital with serious injuries, inflicted by collapsing chimneys or breaking windows.
The city can consider itself unlucky, but I think it's inhabitants can consider themselves very lucky that they got away so lightly.
I wonder which Ring-Of-Fire city is next? Wellington? Tokyo? LA? |
| 9 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| MguyX |
Posted - 02/25/2011 : 17:43:00
I am sad about the tragedy, but very relieved that our resident Pengo is safe. I hope the best for our friends in the rest of New Zealand. |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 02/23/2011 : 07:36:40
The news is reporting 75 dead, and that's just terribly tragic. I hope you all recover from this quickly and that there are no more losses. |
| GHcool |
Posted - 02/22/2011 : 19:13:35
As somebody who lived through the 1994 Northridge earthquake when I was 10 years old, I know what you're going through. Stay positive! |
| Chris C |
Posted - 02/22/2011 : 10:42:20
I'm glad to hear that you (plus our friends in the Auckland area) are safe.
Best wishes to all in NZ |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 02/22/2011 : 08:29:45
Oh Sean, there are no proper words for this. I just awoke to the news reports and wanted to post to see how you all were coping.
Though it's not a happy tale, thanks so much for letting us know. I'm sure I join everyone here in sending loving thoughts your way, and that you all can find some kind of decent ending.
Courage and hugs and hope.
xx
|
| Sean |
Posted - 02/22/2011 : 07:34:29
Eveyone I've heard from today (text messages etc as they're recommending not using phone as they're needed for more important things than chatting, also power is still out for much of the city) has used the word "scared" in their messages. I'll just post them here to give those interested an idea of what it's like to live in a place where the crust has decided to relieve pressure:-
Friend (txt)
"I saw someone get squashed. I was in street. Scared. Plate glass from ANZ fell 1m from me."
Cousin (txt)
"All OK. Scary"
Her 14 y.o. daughter (FB status)
"Holy crap. D: I am so scared."
It really fucking sucks as everyone was so pleased that the city appeared to have dodged a bullet. I.e., the original quake last September was at 4.30am in the weekend and destroyed some old buildings in the city centre when they were empty, and there was no loss of life. Even though the aftershocks kept coming and were getting closer and shallower, everyone thought the worst was behind them. Nobody thought the worst was yet to come.  |
| Sean |
Posted - 02/22/2011 : 05:05:50
Not so good this time. Everyone I know is OK although a friend was a metre away from being hit by glass falling off an office block in the center of town, and saw someone being squashed. |
| Koli |
Posted - 09/05/2010 : 07:27:43
Glad to hear that the damage wasn't as bad as first feared, and that the casualties are light, Sean.
You probably know that we don't do proper earthquakes over here in Blighty.
We do get the occasional minor one. A few years ago there was one in the Black Country, the former heavy-industry area to the north-west of Birmingham. It is alleged that a newspaper headline of the time read:
Earthquake in Dudley does �50,000 worth of improvements. |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 09/05/2010 : 06:45:11
Glad to hear there was so little damage.
My best friend lived in Northbrook California when there was a big quake there a few years ago. She thought there was a storm going on but it was the contents of her pool ended up being pushed up and out and had splashed over her whole house!
There was a quake here in Jerusalem a few years ago, too. Everyone was at work when it happened. Very strange! |
