One Epic fucking day.

[theVOID]

As most of you will have heard, us Christchurch folks woke up at 4:35 this morning to the sight of collapsing buildings Well i was lucky enough to see two fall down anyway.

I live near the very middle of the Christchurch CBD, the worst affected part of the city - I was awoken by a massive bang, i thought at first a car had crashed into the building, i sprang out of bed and rushed straight to the door:

TheVoid (runs into hallway, turns to flatmate) : What the fuck was that?
Flatmate: That was a fucking huge earthquake.

I had to check it out so i ran to the window, just in time to see a building down the end of my block loose it's face:



And it was my favorite fucking Mexican restaurant too! The face spat out not more than a few bricks, then the entire face collapsed onto the street and down into the shops below.

The earthquake lasted about 1 minuet, and it was unlike anything i've ever felt - The walls were literally bending and twisting, you could feel a concrete building sway - And it was fucking awesome, despite the electricity being off for a few hours, and still feeling the aftershocks constantly rumbling through, i found time to have a bong on the roof and enjoy the spectacle of feeling the earth violently shake you around.

The next few hours i spent walking around town in awe, calling out with the other town-goers through the rubble, nothing to bad - nobody was killed luckily, despite several thousand homes and a hundred or so commercial buildings collapsing.

After a bit of this i went back and tuned into the TV broadcast, lad and egg breakfast, and then watched as teams of civil defense workers, police, fire trucks etc cordoned off my entire block, and made me pack up and leave.

I don't think i'll be getting home for a few days, Though i'm pretty sure my building will be alright, very few cracks anywhere, and the landlord seems reassured - Though another big one is predicted in the next 24 hours, so my building may be in a different state after that.

Another interesting thing, this earthquake was bigger than the one in Haiti, yet we managed to get by alright, it just shows how little chance they had in their impoverished conditions.

Anyway, everyone i know is fine, less damage than it could have been, and we were really lucky not to have any fatalities.

[Entropist]

I was thinking about you, actually, as well as a friend that lives there (but she lives in Somerfield, close to Cashmere, and there doesn't appear to be as much heavy damage that way). Glad to hear you are in one piece.

I was in Naples, Italy when the 7.8 earthquake hit in November of 1980 (I was 10 at the time). It was pretty scary. A lot of the older buildings didn't hold up well at all.

[Paul the Human]

Sounds exciting! Heheh!

If the news reports I've seen are accurate, it sounds like the damages could have been far worse. I'm glad to hear it wasn't as tragic as it could have been.

[RachelSkates]

Oh my dog, I'm glad you're OK!

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Another interesting thing, this earthquake was bigger than the one in Haiti, yet we managed to get by alright, it just shows how little chance they had in their impoverished conditions.

It helps that our buildings are better constructed than your typical villa from Haiti, but it is certainly interesting to hear about these things directly from someone going through them. I hope everything turns out well.

[Minimalist]

Any moment now, Void you can expect one of our resident shitheads to come by and tell you that it was all your fault because you don't believe in their particular fairy tale.

Glad everyone is ok.

[Shell B]

I'm a tool. I didn't even know you live there. Now that I do, I'm kind of happy I didn't know until it turned out you were all right.

As shitty as that is, it must have been cool to witness a natural disaster, especially given that it wasn't deadly. I was living in Washington state the last time St. Helens started acting up. A couple of my friends and I went and watched it from another mountain. It was basically the volcano version of spitting up, but it was cool nonetheless. In fact, I think I prefer the little stuff to the huge deal, for obvious reasons.

[theVOID]

Min - I can just point out that several of the most utterly destroyed buildings were Churches, one methodist one Anglican got it particularly bad - But it hardly matters, they aren't real Christians anyway!

[Zen Badger]

Haiti is very very religious(about 96% according to Wiki) and how many died in their earthquake?

UnZud is a lot less religious and no one died,

God obviously approves of atheism.

[Entropist]

Haiti is very very religious(about 96% according to Wiki) and how many died in their earthquake?

UnZud is a lot less religious and no one died,

God obviously approves of atheism.

You certainly wouldn't see THIS kind of thing on TV in the US of A (instead, we bicker about a bloody mosque two blocks from the the WTC site). Seems like a lot of other developed nations understand the principle behind the first amendment better than US Americans do.