Mostly for my non-kiwi offshore friends

As you may or may not have heard, yesterday morning the city I live in was hit by a major earthquake (7.1 on the Ricter scale, shallow, close).

The quake itself was physically similar to the Haiti quake earlier this year however NZ is a country quite used to quakes* and it hit at a time when practically no-one was on the roads or streets.

*The country is basically two tectonic plates having a wrestling match above water.

Thus while there is plenty of property and infrastructure damage (especially to older buildings, and chimneys) there have been no fatalities and only two really serious injuries reported. As I've seen one person put it, we dodged a bomb.

Aftershocks continue more than 24 hours after the event, some topping 5 on the Ricter scale. The possibility of another in the 6 range is not discounted. Just to complicate matters the weather forecast for today includes gale force winds, but yesterday the weather was beautiful.

I am very grateful to the powers that be to be in an area which never lost power/water/internet, and to have filled up the car earlier in the week. However there is a State of Emergency declared and we have to conserve water & boil any water before use.

Damage to my property is so far limited to minor breakage of items inside (including the pottery salt container in the kitchen - salt everywhere) and a small crack which has appeared in the chimney. I'll shortly get up on the roof for a closer inspection (yesterday had other business which I'll post about later).

Other links:
Other historic New Zealand earthquakes
Public Address discussion
Wikipedia page
Twitter hashtags: #eqnz #christchurchquake

Until the aftershocks subside - rock on :D