New Zealand Earth Quakes

[wigam]

Hi

If you haven't heard the South Island of my little country of New Zealand has been hit by a massive earth quake on Saturday morning.
The quake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. It was centered on Christchurch, the 2nd biggest city in New Zealand. About 140 km's North of where I live.

It hit at 04:37 hrs and it found me and the wife and kids in bed sleeping soundly. We were woken to a loud rumbling sound, like a freight train coming through the house. Then the skaking hit and it went on for about 1 minute. The sound was awesome. We ran to the kids and got them up and under cover. The skate lasted for about 1 minute. The house kept swaying for approx 2-3 minutes, it was like being at sea.

We got the kids back into bed, but found we were unable to sleep. We still had power and listened to the radio for news. Not a lot for a while.

The city of Christchurch is a shambles, historic buildings coming down, others needing to be brought down as they are unsafe. Damage is estimated to be in the billions of $. Homes are wrecks, collapsing, liquefaction, it all happening.

At the moment its D-Day + 5. We are over 300 after shocks and counting.

I found this, its a map of the aftershocks so far. It shows the main quake and every single aftershock to date. It gets updated with every new after shock.

I live at the bottom of that map, A small white dot is my home town, of Timaru. It is just below the township of Seaforth.

New Zealand Quake Map