4th September.2010, 4.36am the earth moved with no warning. I had been breastfeeding my son, who was being inconsolable with his cold. His father had taken him into the other room to change his nappy and I lay for a moment in peace and quiet.
Then the walls started to move. I lept up from my lying postion onto my feet and ran into my daughters room with the ground moving beneathe me. She had only started to wake up. I scooped her up into my arms. A million thoughts went through my head of all the things I had learned growing up. Stand in the door frame, get outside, get under the bed! I screamed at my husband who had never experienced and earthquake before to jump under the bed. All four of us scrambled under the bed. My daughter was screaming 'Mummy Mummy' my son crying at the shock of being thrusted underneath the bed and my husband and I trying to console both of them "It's ok, it going to be ok." The sound was as terrifying as was the movement its self. The earth roared with complete fury, the windows shook to the point where they sounded like they were shattering in a million pieces. Then the deafening silence filled the room. We crawled out from our shelter, shell shock at what had just happened. "Is everyone ok?" I asked my voice shaken.
I hugged my daughter as tight as I could and placed her in our bed where we had just huddled under for shelter. I looked across at my husband and son and breathed in relief that we were all ok.I waited a moment and then went down to check on my puppy.
We have only had Freddie for a couple of days and he was sleeping in his crate. But before the earthquake hit he had started to whine. I swear he was trying to warn us something was about to happen.
.
I got Freddie out of his crate and I took him outside to go to the toilet. The street lights were on but we had no power in the house. I looked at the sky and saw a million stars and thought of how beautiful it was. Freddie and I came back inside. I opened the curtains so we could have some light from the street lamps. I sat on the bed and my legs wouldn't stop moving.
I crawled back into bed and snuggled up next to my daughter trying to get warm to stop the shock from getting worse. Then the second earthquake hit. Not as violent and long as the first but frightening. The street lights went out.
We were very unprepared for this natural disaster, we had no batteries in the torch, we had candles but I know better then to light a candle in an earthquake. We also had no radio. Because there was no electricity there was no connection to the outside world. I grabbed the laptop and my cellphone so we had some light and huddled up in bed. Hubby went out to the car to listen to the radio, where we heard that it was a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. The same magnitude which hit Haiti last year. More aftershocks hit, whilst he was out listening to the radio. I was frantically trying to call loved ones to see if they were ok. They were. We are so lucky that everyone we know and love were ok. No damage to properties or people. Hubby came back inside and we lay awake wishing that the sun would come up faster.
My daughter woke up at 7am on the dot and demanded to have breakfast. I lay in bed with my son keeping him asleep knowing that there was disaster out there and it would wait until he woke up.
Nothing broke in my house, I hadn't fully unpacked from moving a few weeks earlier because we are renovating the lounge and dining. The foundations and land are fine and fortunately we don't have a brick chimney.
The electricity to most of the city was out, the cellphone networks were down and the water supply was and is on the dodgy side. I didn't see the major devestation until the electricity had come on at 1.15pm that day. It was horrifying.
My beautiful Christchurch, my home city which has looked after me since I was just a twinkle in my mothers eye had been bought to the ground. The beautiful historic buildings which lined the inner city were destroyed. Churches which were iconic collapsed. If you went into certain areas in Christchurch you could smell the sewage leaking from broken pipes. Closer to the ocean the silt had burst through the ground creating mass distruction in its wake. The ground spilt open where there was concrete and fields of grass. It bought tears to my eyes.
Every aftershock I sit on the edge of my seat ready to run, grab my children and dive under the table or go outside. Every movement you wait for the ground to open up and swallow you whole. My entire being is shaken.
But I am proud of my Christchurch. The way everyone has responded. Communities coming together sharing stories. The civil services couldn't have reacted any better. Well Done Christchurch.
