Thanks for the thoughts, folks.

It's getting on for 4 am NZ time, nearly 15 hours after the lunch-time (12:51) quake. I'm OK, family and friends are OK, but MANY near misses.

Where I am ( power is back now but we still have no water or sewage systems available. My house (basically concrete block) has a few new cracks and broken windows but it's still standing. A few breakages around the house including my keyboard but I'm back now with a replacement.

These last 24 hours from the Christchurch Quake Map
[www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz]
pretty much sum it up, up to about an hour ago, with many of the latest shocks missing.
We had a couple as I typed which felt around magnitude 5+, and I'm weary beyond belief.

Goodnight all.

Last 55 quakes (4880 total):
Magnitude, Depth, Time
4.7M, depth: 5km 23/2/2011 03:04
3.9M, depth: 12km 23/2/2011 01:21
3.9M, depth: 4km 23/2/2011 00:57
3.7M, depth: 5km 23/2/2011 00:43
4.3M, depth: 5km 23/2/2011 00:18
3.7M, depth: 5km 23/2/2011 00:15
4.5M, depth: 5km 23/2/2011 00:02
4M, depth: 9km 22/2/2011 23:05
4M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 22:18
4M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 22:16
4.1M, depth: 7km 22/2/2011 21:38
4.8M, depth: 7km 22/2/2011 21:21
3.4M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 20:22
2.8M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 20:13
5.0M, depth: 12km 22/2/2011 19:43
4.6M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 19:28
3.5M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 19:25
4.6M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 18:59
3.4M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 18:47
3.4M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 18:47
3.5M, depth: 11km 22/2/2011 18:39
3.1M, depth: 12km 22/2/2011 18:27
3.1M, depth: 3km 22/2/2011 18:23
3.9M, depth: 17km 22/2/2011 18:17
3.7M, depth: 9km 22/2/2011 18:14
4.3M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 18:03
4.0M, depth: 13km 22/2/2011 17:56
3.3M, depth: 11km 22/2/2011 17:46
3.5M, depth: 6km 22/2/2011 17:30
3.6M, depth: 11km 22/2/2011 17:29
4.6M, depth: 13km 22/2/2011 17:19
3.5M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 16:59
4.2M, depth: 11km 22/2/2011 16:46
3.7M, depth: 6km 22/2/2011 16:43
4.2M, depth: 10km 22/2/2011 16:32
4.4M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 16:24
5.0M, depth: 12km 22/2/2011 16:04
4.5M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 15:48
4.6M, depth: 11km 22/2/2011 15:43
3.2M, depth: 19km 22/2/2011 15:37
4.3M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 15:21
3.7M, depth: 8km 22/2/2011 15:08
3.7M, depth: 7km 22/2/2011 15:04
5.9M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 14:50
4.0M, depth: 8km 22/2/2011 14:39
3.3M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 14:37
3.4M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 14:30
4.6M, depth: 9km 22/2/2011 14:20
4.6M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 14:15
4.5M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 13:46
4.6M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 13:21
5.7M, depth: 6km 22/2/2011 13:04
4.9M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 12:56
6.3M, depth: 4km 22/2/2011 12:51
2.6M, depth: 5km 22/2/2011 12:34
3.1M, depth: 3km 22/2/2011 09:16

Good to hear that you are OK. Sleep well!

We are with you in spirit.

Thank you for taking the time to let us know you are OK. So pleased to hear it, and that your family and friends are OK too. Wish there was more we could do!

Sitting here at my computer in Ohaupo, thinking of everybody down there, and sending most positive wishes.

Thanks to all Friends of Christchurch for the good wishes.

It's getting on for 1 am here, now. Last aftershock about 2 minutes ago.
Last report I heard - 75 confirmed dead, 200 still missing.
Power on but no water or sewage service in my area.

Hotel Grand Chancellor (our largest remaining building) hasn't fallen over yet - another really good aftershock should do it, probably just in time for the 6 am news. Maybe later.

ZZZZZZzzzzz...

I know the pen is supposed to be mightier than the sword and all that, but frankly there are times when nothing you can write seems up to the occasion.

I'd have to agree with geg, except to say that our thoughts are with you and if there is anything practical that I *can* do, them please let me know.

I have been in touch with relatives who live just north of Christchurch who had no problems with the quake.
What surprised me was the reaction to the devestation. New Zealand is bigger than the UK but the attitude was like a small English town. Everyone was concerned about each other.
I am so glad the sporting world, Cricket and Rugby included, is helping with donations.

-----------------------------------------
Joint winner Colouring Competition 2007
and outright winner of the 3 time winner of the Ffestival Dodo Feeding competition.
Fforde Ffiesta Ffotos are here - [www.flickr.com]

Christchurch, March 2nd, eight days after the February 22nd Earthquake.

Eight days ago in Christchurch, about half an hour after noon as I was eating lunch with friends in my home at the foot of the Cashmere hills, we felt aftershock number 4,895 (counting magnitude two and over) following the September 2010 quake. Magnitude 2.6, just another wobble not even worth mentioning. Twenty minutes later it all changed. The February 22 quake, magnitude 6.3, can't have been as bad as a 7.1 quake, right?

Wrong.

Quake 1 was a slow(ish) quake. The ground wobbled with a PGA (Peak Ground Acceleration) of 1.26g. (That "g" is the same "g" as "g-force.") Sure, it was bad enough. Some buildings fell down. Some houses fell down. Some roads became just a little bit tricky for driving.

Nobody died.

Quake 2 was much more vicious. A PGA of 2.2 is just so much worse, despite the lower magnitude.

Here's an example of the kind of difference. Not an analogy, not an accurate comparison (but on re-reading, closer than I thought.)

Imagine someone stands in front of you holding a baseball bat horizontally, one hand on each end. They step forward to place the middle of the bat gently against your chest, then suddenly push away as hard as they can, finishing with a speed equal to that of a bat at the end of a normal swing. You'll go backwards and fall, but you'll probably keep your bruised ribs intact.
Now picture the man with the bat standing at your side and swinging a bat nearly twice the size and weight of the first bat, with just a little less speed than the above final speed, at your chest (complete with textbook follow-through.)
That's the kind of difference between the two quakes. (Disclaimer - it's not really like that, but it bloody well felt like it.)

My city is in ruins.

Today's news (unverified) said that up to 60% of buildings in the Central Business District are unsafe and may need to be demolished.

Some Eastern suburbs are still without power, without water, without sewage service, without phones, without roads. What they do have are collapsed, flooded homes surrounded by piles of the sewage contaminated silt of liquefaction, drying in the wind and blowing a fine bacteria-laden dust into mouths and eyes, into clothes and into houses without the power to use a vacuum cleaner, without water to rinse the cloths used to wipe the tables that don't have the food they can't get to through the damaged roads.

Sorry for the purple prose, it's starting to get to me.

I live on the other side of town. Sure, my house now has cracks in the walls, the water supply is just a trickle, I have a loo with no view in the back yard, but I have power, phone, Internet, I can drive my car out the gate to one of the supermarkets (admittedly via a circumbendibus riverrun, a commodius vicus of recirculation) which have supplies - my rubbish bins were collected yesterday!

To get to the supermarket today I drove about 500 metres away from a building which still contains an unknown number of unrecovered bodies. I was about a kilometre from that symbol of Christchurch, our Cathedral in the Square, where there are still about twenty bodies beneath the rubble of the collapsed spire. It's scary and surreal.

Over the fence on my back section there's an elderly man living alone. I call in to say hello to check he's still alive and talk to him listen to him talk every so often. His birthday is next month. He'll be 97. He's happy. His house is fine.

There's a "Student Army" of about 16,000 University students from this city and others from up to 400 kilometres away who are going around the city, helping those who need it, shoveling away the liquefaction silt (so far, well over 120,000 tonnes from around the city), bringing water and just being helpful to anyone who needs help. "These young people today" aren't all that bad.

OK, end of random burbling. Funny, on re-reading I can see myself slowly calming down from start to finish, and there wasn't one single aftershock as I typed.

Hotel Grand Chancellor (our largest remaining building) still hasn't fallen over yet.

I'm sure you'd rather have water than an internet connection, but from a purely selfish point of view I'm very glad you have the latter.

geg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I know the pen is supposed to be mightier than the
> sword and all that, but frankly there are times
> when nothing you can write seems up to the
> occasion.
--------------------------------------------------------


That pretty much sums it-
just keep coming back so we know you're ok & feel free to vent...

We've had tiny little earthquakes locally that sound like doors slamming
& don't do any more damage than slamming a door would... at least, so far...

**************************************
Signature or shameless self-promotion?
You decide:

[www.myspace.com]

**************************************

MistyCat,

Burble on as much as you want, between sleeps.

I am sure that we all feel for yopu and your community, and the loss of life.


I am not sure which Chinese year this is, but after Queensland and Christchurch I think it needs a new horoscope written for it.

Thanks for the thoughts, folks.

The Feb 22nd quake happened 19 days into the Year of the Rabbit (Hare). Jan 23, 2012 will be the year of the Dragon. I remember from somewhere that the Chinese New Year is the second New Moon after the Winter Solstice.
I think a suitable animal for this year would be an armoured armadillo, or perhaps a tortoise that could move out of Christchurch, complete with portable non-falling-down home.

Just kidding.
"Here I be and here I bide," as my elderly aunt might have said if she ever said anything like that, which she didn't.

I'm still fine, my friends are fine, the house has a few more cracks in the walls and one broken window but is still solid, and on the whole I'm better off than about 80% of Christchurch. The sights I've seen in the Central Business District, and in the Eastern Suburbs where I've been helping out for a while would make you weep, though.

But, there's enough in the coffers to repair and replace. I expect the Cathedral will be restored (read: rebuilt to look the same) and in a few years nobody will quite remember how things used to look.

Magnitude of biggest aftershock as I typed this: 4.3.

Road sign at Little River
[lh4.googleusercontent.com]

Edited link out of secure area

You know you live in Christchurch when....

· Geonet / ChristchurchQuakeMap is your homepage

· The rest of the country offers you a place to stay

· “Munted” and “buggered” are official technical terms

· You go 'pfffff' when Wellington has a 4.5 earthquake that's 40km deep

· You see a nice park in another city and think it would make a good evacuation point

· You sleep in one suburb, shower in another and collect water from yet another

· When you drive on the right side of the road and no one thinks it's wrong

· You are happy two Policemen came for a visit

· When your bike becomes your best friend

· You think it's fine for a soldier to be stationed at the end of your street

· You see armoured vehicles driving down the road

· It’s normal to greet people with “do you need a shower?”

· A bucket of sh*t is no longer that old car you drive

· Every house is a crack house

· Instead of rushing to the clothes line to get clothes in when it rains, you put dirty washing on the line in the hope that it will rain enough to clean them

· Going to Wellington to escape earthquakes makes sense

· Your doctor recommends having a few stiff drinks before bed to help you sleep

· You know how to start and refuel a generator

· You have tied the pantry, liquor cabinet and all the cupboard doors closed and it's not to keep kids out

· You prefer to sit under the table instead of at it

· You think electronics that have "shock proof" should say to which earthquake magnitude

· You know and actually understand the terms and conditions of your House and Contents insurance policies

· You can see irony in claims about houses made of “permanent materials”

· Your en-suite has a vege garden, dog kennel and grass

· Your teenagers are only too happy to sleep in the same room as their parents

· You stop using the term “built like a brick sh*t house”

· Dressing up to "head into town" means putting on a hi-viz vest, hard hat and boots

· Discussing toilet habits with total strangers is an everyday norm

· Wee boys don't get excited when they see (another) digger or a dozer - but all the adults in the street cheer wildly

· Voluntarily staying in Timaru for five days seems like a good idea

· You know what that extra gear lever on your 4X4 is for

· Metservice includes a graph for dust

· You have dust mask tan lines

· You can use the term "liquefaction" in everyday casual conversation, even your 3-year old can

· When a massive group of students appears in your street, you feel overwhelmed with gratitude instead calling the Police. What’s more, the students leave the street in better condition than when they arrived

· The answer to where anything is ... it’s on the floor

· You smile at strangers and greet people like you’re one big family
Edited link out of secure area (D'oh!)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2011 08:29AM by MistyCat.

Love it. It's great to see some humour surfacing from this event. Long may that continue.

Kia kaha,

Joseph.

How is your elderly neighbour bearing up MC?

He's fine. He's well looked after, and has regular visits from family. The quake had little effect on his house and section.

MistyCat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> · When you drive on the right side of the
> road and no one thinks it's wrong

I do that every day and no-one here thinks it's wrong.

MC, I've been covered in work and studying and haven't been able to check in lately with the fforde-crowd. I'm so pleased to come back for a minute and see that you have not lost your sense of humor! I'd like to think that my corner of the world would come together and help each other as well as NZ has after something like that, but you never know until it happens.

I'm going to share your list with my friends. Most of them don't "get" the conversations/jokes here, but this one is universal!

Take care, and please keep us posted.