Earthquake Redux

Defining days in your life. You know them: World Trade Centre collapse etc. Closer to home we have September 4, 2010 - the 7.1 earthquake in Christchurch, Lots of buildings down, no fatalities. That all changed today, February 22, 2011. Only a 6.3, but centred pretty much on the city and only 5km deep. Bad bad place for a quake.

So, where were we? Well, as luck (possibly) would have it, we were celebrating the departure of a loved staff member, a picnic and barbecue in North New Brighton, 15 minutes drive from the office, beside the beach.

And so at 12.50 the ground shook. Although actually it swayed, Big time! No one fell over, but the noise and seriously, riding the wave! Next thought, tsunami. Dave ran up the dunes to check, no outgoing tide action, regardless, we evacuated, trying to get back to the office. I called home, and amazingly cell phones still worked - all OK - whew!

So, we 5; Moi, Mike, Jonathan, Tracey and Dave, tried to head back to the office. Let?s say it was an adventure and that I was VERY glad we had a 4WD. New Brighton was/is devastated. It's hard to describe. Completely flooded due to broken water pipes, huge holes in the road, deep mud/liquifaction, cars stranded, houses collapsed or broken - simply terrible. We simply couldn't get back.

So we reviewed the plan and headed towards town. The best move we could make, but far from ideal. To cut a long story short, Jonathan and Mike bailed and walked across town, as did Dave, I took Tracey home. Optimistically I set off back home, but after 30 minutes of stalled traffic I realised my folly, back tracked, parked my car and borrowed Traceys bike to ride home. I cut thru places cars couldn't go and OH the devastation.

I took a photo of a collapsed building, then saw a car flattened in front so moved closer to capture it, and I did, A guy then came up to me and suggested I didn't. The blue tarp was there for a reason. A person was still underneath it, dead. I'm teary writing this ...

So I biked home, lots of liquefaction everywhere, and got back to see the family. What a relief.

House not too badly damaged, more cracks. Lots of stuff broken and a bit of a tidy up. Off to check friends houses who are away, some damage, but not catastrophic. All in all, again we and most of our immediate friends and family have come out OK. But ...

This is different, at least 65 dead reported tonight, and realistically probably a lot more. It's cold, it's raining, and the damage is so much worse than Sept 4. Aftershocks are occurring around every 5 - 10 mins, some of them large. It's somewhat unsettling. I think that's what Scott would have said ...

After a great deal of consideration, about the day, my thoughts, and the family of the person affected, I've decided to post the photo I referred to earlier. I have images far more representative of my experience in New Brighton and the devastation there, but this image in my mind represents the devastation and death as city we've had to cope with. My extreme sympathies for his or her family.

Photos are a medium to inform people and I have experienced negative and positive reactions to taking photos today. My feeling, right now, is that photos are a great record, for better or worse. Right now it's not that good, but it needs to be remembered. For better or worse. Personally, I will never forget this day, and in particular this moment in my life when I took this photo.

And seriously, at 12.50am, we're getting shocks after 2 - 3 minutes. Not fun. Nerves are seriously frayed. You can hear them coming ...

Edit, 2am:
Thanks for the kind comments. To be fair, these are my personal feelings, tonight. The city hasn't fallen down (OK, well some parts have) and most residents are mostly OK. This isn't something you wish for, but believe me, it helps bind communities. There are tragic loses, and those affected people will suffer for some time and that is incredibly sad. But the reality is most of us will look to pick up the pieces tomorrow and get on with life. Or head out of town for a few days ;-)

BTW, if you want to join in the fun check out Geonet. They aren't capturing all the quakes by a long shot, but you'll get the idea.