4 September 2010 - the earth is shaking

In the early morning hours of Saturday 4 September (at 4.35am) we woke up being violently shaken in our beds. Christchurch was hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, with the epicentre about 30 km west of the city. The earthquake was slightly stronger than the one that occured in Haiti earlier in the year that left 230,000 dead and 1.6 million homeless. We in Christchurch were extremely lucky: there were 2 injured, and nobody killed.


Both Anahita and Tara didn't quite grasp what was happening. Anahita came sleepily down from the bunk bed, complaining to her sister that she should stop shaking the bed. Our house did not experience any damage, though some book shelves fell over and one or two flower pots broke. We spend the rest of the morning till dawn sitting cuddled up on the sofa in the living room, listening to Radio New Zealand on our windup torch/radio we had just purchased a few months earlier.


It was only at daylight that the damage became evident. This is the St Albans Community Centre, my work place.


The whole south wall, an add-on to the main building, built in the 1970's, came down.


That room would have been full of people during daytime hours.


This is my office. Except for overturned shelves, etc. the rest of the 1920's building held up quite well.


The quake however was disastrous for many older brick buildings. Even though many tried to blame the quake on the decline of moral behaviour in modern society, it was many of the churches that were heavily damaged.


Except for areas close to the rivers, residential buildings got damaged mainly by falling brick chimneys.


The impact on business however was worse.


Many business premises are/were located in older brick buildings that got damaged. The central business district was cordoned off for weeks and is still not fully accessible three months later.




Many of the buildings were razed to the ground within the week.


There is also a concern about heritage buildings, and how to save them.


Little did we know that day that the earth wouldn't settle down for a long time. By the end of the year more than 4000 aftershocks were registered. Many businesses haven't opened since the 4 September and about 3000 residential homes are condemned.