22.02.11 - the second one.

Christchurch City looks like a bomb ripped through it.

Pictures available here.

Was in central city, working when the earthquake hit. You know those moments where you will remember for the rest of your life what exactly you were doing? Yes, well I remember thinking minutes before it hit "gosh, it's lunch-time soon! Can't wait for my salami sandwiches. I am hungry."

At first I thought it was a strong aftershock.....but then as I ducked under the table and held on for dear life, the room shook, the whole building swayed, plaster cracked and the air turned dusty....computer monitors fell over, and furniture and stationery arranged themselves around the room.

I left with my bag, my two cellphones, and a shoe. I walk barefooted in the office (we're temps, and this is NZ...so I don't think anyone cares. :D), and amidst the debris and confusion, I could not find my shoe.

So we left, quickly. Broken glass everywhere, broken water pipes...it honestly looked like something out of a disaster movie. It took me 2-3 hours to get home, on what usually is a 20-30mins commute. The city...was an absolute shocker. Brick walls tumbled over...rubble everywhere.....liqufication...streets broken like chocolate pieces.

My boyfriend had his laptop smashed by falling books...and ran outside with his colleagues, while dodging falling chemicals. He was on the 8th floor of the Chem block.

Death toll stands at 65 people.... 2000+++ people are in Hagley Park for the night - they are without shelter, and it is raining outside. We're helping out too, we have two tourists staying the night at our house. And no, they aren't weird, their middle aged career people. Long story that.

Christchurch will take a long time to recover from this. Damage done was much worse than the September 4 earthquake - and people were up and about. And this is in addition to what we haven't cleaned up from Sept 4.

How I wish I could be helping out at the triage centres in Christchurch....but unfortunately my expertise does not lie in that area...so I will just stay put at home.

More updates likely to come. As I am off work now, tomorrow will likely be icky weather.

Read more...

Aftershocks, aftermath and life in general

Come to think of it, the earthquake hit at the best possible time. At 4.36am, no one (or not many) people would have been up and about. Night shift generally finishes at 6am, and partiers are home by 4am. Even people that may have been in the library are usually home by 3am - this compounded with the fact that it was the holidays meant no one was hurt. So far we've had more than 300 aftershocks. Apparently 1 out of 10 (read it in the papers, but don't quote me on this!) houses have sustained damage.

The following is a picture of our library (possible the 4th floor).

Absolutely insane eh? Thank God it happened during the holidays and at night. I imagine people would have been seriously injured, or crushed to death being caught in it. We are not able to borrow books in the central library for this semester...unfortunately. Poor lib.

Here's another one of the library staircase. Minimal tiling damage.

I promised some quake photos, but the ones I took are a bit poor, and I have not yet uploaded them...so here's some of the devastation the Garden City has suffered - estimated to be 4 billion in damage - this figure seems very likely to rise...

 There's blue and red writing on the white wall where you can just make out the words 'Fish & Chips'. Unfortunately that was my friend's parent's shop. His shop is featured in Yahoo! News...for all the wrong reasons =/.

Fire broke out on Worchester St soon after the earthquake.

The dude in the background taking photos looks strangely like my friend.....similar leather jackets I guess?

Personally I've found this to be quite surreal. The suburb I live in was not touched, not even a jot! The cherry blossom trees are still growing, their buds becoming delicate pink blooms. But it is really really heartwarming to see student volunteers helping clean up the mess in the suburbs (the inner city is still cordoned off) - a couple hundred students giving up their time and energy to clear the silt, water and broken masonry from houses and streets. A couple are helping by baking scones, muffins etc for the volunteers and for the residents who may not be having the best time finding food. Real heartwarming! Shining example pulling together as a community :).

The opening date for term 4 has been pushed forward 2 weeks, 1 week more than the 1 week that was originally planned). That means another extension for my essays, and less material for the exams! I feel sluggish though, =/ I better get my butt back into work.

Aftershocks have decreased dramatically! Good news for people who are still afraid of the aftershocks. As for me I'm pretty much over the novelty of the constantly tremoring ground.

Some clever fish at Canty U wrote a webpage recording the timeline of all the earthquakes - this includes depth, intensity and radius. Check it out!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Thanks to SL and L, I will be watching 500 Days of Summer. Significant other (lets call him D) thinks Joseph Gordon-Levitt is hot! :D so I've got the all clear to watch it with him. *cough*

Watched a short clip of JGL playing an electric guitar and singing Lady Gaga's Bad Romance....I'm sorry JGL, but you can't sing that well :(.

Oh, and here I compare JGL with D.

• They both play the electric guitar (woohoo!)
• Both studied French (though D dropped it ages ago. Heh.)
• Both look greattt in suits. (Invest in a fitted suit guys!)

Ok, I'm done writing for the night. Writing an email for the club, then I'll be off. Night to all :)

Read more...

Aftershocks

They just keepin' comin'!

The latest was a 5.4...and we did only have a 5.4 right after the big 7.1 hit at 4.40am on Saturday morning.

But now we're just standing around, watching the building shake and waiting for it to stop.

As I write this update another aftershock hits. Apparently with shallow earthquakes like this one, aftershocks can take weeks to subside. There has so far been 100++ aftershocks now - so much so that I can't tell if it is my legs that are shaking the table, the wind, or another earthquake.

Just another update before I head to sleep. Be posting more tomorrow hopefully!

Over and out.

Read more...

My blog looks so plain without pictures. I should post more up, but really since my blog is open I'd like to preserve my anonymity with randoms.

So here's one! While I'm still on my Inception run :D

Also there seems to be an unhealthy number of Eames & Arthur fanart. As in EamesArthur fanart. Disturbing.

Ariadne and Arthur I understand only slightly more. Yes, they kissed. They're two pretty, competent people in the movie, but I'm sure it doesn't go past that? Oh wait, I could actually see an Inception 2 featuring Ariadne and Arthur working together :O. It wouldn't be half as creative as the current one though - though Ariadne and Arthur are talented people you'd still need an extractor. With as many problems as Cobb - and Eames doesn't seem to have that problem. But anyway, here's a bit of fanart on Arthur & Eames. :D

And a still of Arthur. I lol-ed at this. Silently of course, as my family was asleep.

His expression matches hillariously with the caption.

Personal update:

Aftershocks have decreased, we've had 50+++ aftershocks so far. There's a north-westerly gale wind blowing (a warm one), and planes keep flying over our house. I can't really tell whether it's an aftershock or a plane, or even the wind - they all make the house creak slightly.

As the planes fly over I can't help but think of the passengers - apparently there are a lot of seismologists/geologists/experts in general flying in to assess the earthquake - it didn't occur along a known fault. We are still due for 'the big one' which can be will be expected to be between 7.5 to 8 on the scale, and due within the next 700 years. Hopefully it'll happen when I'm gone.

Our earthquake emergency bags and such are still packed, though initial concern has faded. Life seems a little more boring now. As it is we were extremely lucky the earthquake struck when it did at 4.40am, had it struck earlier in the night there may have been casualties at clubs, and had it struck later in the morning there would have been people up and about. Casualties from this earthquake stand at one...the poor person died of a heart attack during the earthquake :(.

I drove a bit around Chch city this afternoon. CBD was cordoned off as there were massive structural cracks in some buildings, broken windows etc, things you'd associate with earthquakes. The road was broken in some places, and in some places silt had exploded through the cracks in the road. Bricks had tumbled down off buildings and were lying in a tidy heap - they'd been swept to the side by road cleaning crews. The banks of the Avon river were swollen...from burst water mains or leaking sewage? Unsure.

I took some photos, may post them up here later when I upload em.

*EDIT*

The second after I clicked 'post', an aftershock hit. Whee~

Read more...