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 :)

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Earthquake log

In case anyone is interested :). It stops just past noon, but I assure you there have been quite a few aftershocks past noon.

GeoNet data shows a series of very strong earthquakes in Canterbury today:

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 12:18 pm
Magnitude: 4.0
Depth: 12 km
Details: 10 km east of Darfield

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 11:52 am
Magnitude: 3.9
Depth: 5 km
Details: 20 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 11:12 am
Magnitude: 5.3
Depth: 12 km
Details: 10 km east of Darfield

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 10:58 am
Magnitude: 3.9
Depth: 5 km
Details: 20 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 10:17 am
Magnitude: 4.4
Depth: 5 km
Details: 30 km south-west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 8:15 am
Magnitude: 4.7
Depth: 9 km
Details: 20 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 7:56 am
Magnitude: 5.2
Depth: 7 km
Details: 20 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 7:52 am
Magnitude: 4.0
Depth: 5 km
Details: Within 5 km of Darfield

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 7:13 am
Magnitude: 4.6
Depth: 9 km
Details: 20 km north-west of Little River

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 7:07 am
Magnitude: 4.7
Depth: 25 km
Details: 30 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 6:33 am
Magnitude: 4.3
Depth: 5 km
Details: 30 km south of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 6:23 am
Magnitude: 4.3
Depth: 5 km
Details: 10 km south of Darfield

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 6:04 am
Magnitude: 3.9
Depth: 60 km
Details: 10 km south of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 5:55 am
Magnitude: 4.6
Depth: 5 km
Details: 30 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 5:26 am
Magnitude: 4.9
Depth: 5 km
Details: 30 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 5:26 am
Magnitude: 4.8
Depth: 5 km
Details: 30 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 5:06 am
Magnitude: 4.8
Depth: 15 km
Details: 30 km west of Belfast

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 4:56 am
Magnitude: 5.3
Depth: 8 km
Details: 30 km west of Christchurch

NZST: Sat, Sep 4 2010 4:35 am
Magnitude: 7.1
Depth: 10 km
Details: 40 km west of Christchurch

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EARTHQUAKE

No really, I'm not kidding.

Our sleepy city was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the richter scale. This was approximately at 4.40am.

The earthquake happened 10km deep, and only 40km from Christchurch.

We were one of the luckier suburbs - power got cut off, but restored, and our water isn't contaminated!!

Central city has suffered quite a bit. Some fissures, cracks in the ground, collapsed walls.

I don't think there are any casualties so far, but we have been advised to prepare for another large aftershock.

Now for my personal account:

I woke up in the middle of the night due to the bed and room rumbling HEAVILY... and thought it was part of my dream, and that the wind was blowing really hard. Lame eh? So promptly tried to get back to sleep. I had a niggling feeling that there was something wrong, but couldn't be bothered to find out what, despite the numerous heavy-ish aftershocks I was experiencing.

This was until Dad came to check up on me and told me an earthquake had happened.

:O

Now, I grew up in NZ. We've had fire drills and stuff but there has always been an emphasis on earthquake drills - what to do, where to stand, how to act, how to prepare.

I'm ashamed to say I did none of it.

= =

What I really did was to flip the covers over my head, and sleep again. Of course, this was impossible due to the many aftershocks.

After about 10+++ aftershocks I decided to get up and head to the toilet. And check out how family were doing. We had no electricity now, but still we had running water - thank goodness.

After hanging with the family and getting and sending "omigoshearthquakeareyouok???" texts to friends for a bit I went back out to head to sleep. This was difficult due to aftershocks but I fell asleep anyway.

= = feeling ashamed with my earthquake training. My friends had either run outside or hid under tables (proper earthquake training!), and here I was, texting leisurely and trying to get back to sleep. LAME

Apparently there will be a strong aftershock, so we're packing some things. Dad, being the very organised one has bottled heaps of water (about 20 2L bottles lined up).

I'll be prepared for this one. Aftershocks keep hitting as I type.

There are however some pros due to this earthquake:

- ESSAY EXTENSIONS FOR A WEEEK :D
- University is closed for an extra week for health and safety reasons!!
- MORE HOLIDAYYYY

I am really glad no one was hurt though.

I better start packing.

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Condemning the Gaza Convoy Attack.

Shall I join in?

A bit shameful, stopping those vessels loaded with aid.

And like weeds after the rain, FB pages spring up, condemning Israel and supporting Gaza.

All of which is fine of course.

Free speech is cherished virtue, is it not?

What gets on my nerves is when it turns into hate speech. Or religious speech. Most of the people on those pages are....Malaysian.

They rely on...Malaysian media, telling them what is wrong.

Seriously? Wth?

The government has done nothing but attempt to indoctrinate us. This is reflected in our studies. Wth did we have half our form 5 book dedicated to the Middle East? The contemporary super power is China, and the super powers have always been European, or at least American. At least throw in ONE MORE line about Christopher Colombus. Or the dark ages in England.

What infuriates me is that a number of them on the FB site do not believe that the holocaust ever happened.

Are they indoctrinated out of their minds?

We know that Malaysian media will never report the amount of bomb scares that happen in Israel. That Israel has the best sappers in the world due to the amount of "training" they get. In real life.

We know that Malaysian media will never report "suicide bombers" as such, and embellish their title with something like "freedom fighter".

They rely on Al-Jazeera for their news. Wth. Al-Jazeera. With quotes like:

"Security Council is ineffective when it comes to Middle East's issues. Everybody knows that."

The SC is largely ineffective in most entrenched conflicts. Partially because it is somewhat bogged down by bureacracy, and the superpower veto vote. But come on dudes. They were ineffective in Srebrenica, Rwanda, and Somalia, just to name a few. And what have the Middle Eastern countries actually done for anyone else, with regards to peacekeeping and humanitarian aid? The countries that have done so are often the European ones, and America. Even countries in Africa has stepped up to assist their neighbouring countries in their times of need.

I do not in any way condone Israel in this act.

But I abhor the biasedness of the people and the hate they display without proper basis.

Sickening.

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And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to....

Barack Obama???

Is that not a popularist vote? That coupled with the fact the nominations closed 2 months after he was elected.

I would have thought Suu Kyi stood more of a chance, though she's basically in solitary confinement. Or the Dalai Lama. Or John Key even. Especially since the award was for a '"hope for a better future”, pushing for nuclear disarmament and efforts to strengthen international diplomacy' - NZ has always pushed for nuclear disarmament. -_-

Sounds like a slight against Bush. Yes, Obama may have inherited a slew of problems from his predecessor, but what is he doing to promote peace? Seriously? The G8/G20 conference? Did they even talk about world peace? The closest I've seen (to be fair, seeing as I live in NZ) was Obama telling Ahmadinejad that some 'action' may be take if he continues with what most people assume to be a uranium enrichment program.

Obama is NOT near Mother Teresa. And to be fair, he may be eventually - but a future possibility does not deserve awarding until it has been made tangible. In the words of the Iranian Foreign Minister: “decision in this area was hasty, and conferring this prize was premature.”

Well put.

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YESH!

Pink and Carey Hart are getting back together!! :D

I don't concern myself with celeb goss...but they seem different :). So all the best to them.

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