Day One

nearly ten hours after the major quake, I still can't believe that we actually had an earthquake here this morning. it really was unbelievably surreal.

waking to constant movement, i actually had to ask 'what the f*^k was going on, is this an earthquake?'. i have never in my life felt a quake and this just didn't seem like it was going to stop. Besides the fact that the little knowledge I have (from studying geography and geology at university) had me thinking that it's so unlikely for an earthquake this large to hit Christchurch.

i lay in bed, for what i can only assume now, was moments before jumping up and getting into the doorway and bracing myself. a few seconds later i 'complained' about feeling nauseous and then my legs went from underneath me, i really felt like i was going to faint. just at that moment, the rumbling and movement stopped.

we slowly gathered ourselves. being in a new house on solid ground there had been very little damage AND very little notion of just how big the quake was. we made our way downstairs, lit by the screen of boy's laptop.

we lit candles and assessed what had happened. unbelievably hardly anything had moved, or broken.

we sat down dazed and confused. i wanted to go back to bed, but boy wasn't allowing that. i called his mother... we discussed. the first aftershock hit, i headed for the table.

slowly we got our head around what had happened. in the dim light of the candles, there didn't seem to be much we could do. the next hour disappeared into nothingness

as the sun rose, indicating a beautiful day (and beautiful light) the photographer in me wanted to go and take photos, but we had no gas in the car. it had been the first thing we were going to do in the morning.

I was supposed to be teaching at 9, so we went back upstairs and crawled into bed.

an hour later i awoke. i made calls...there was no teaching today.

texts from friends and family out of chc started coming in. are you ok? it was 7.1. centred in darfield. town looks like a war zone. i still couldn't comprehend it.

after some procrastination we decided to walk into town...we knew we weren't going to be getting gas anytime soon.

50 m down the street and the first sign of what was to come hit us in the face. a building half demolished, bricks strewn across the ground. i ran into one of my students. he had been into town...and finally evidence, that this was BIG. there was utter destruction to many a familiar building.

we headed towards town, the brick buildings were the ones that had the most damage....that we could see.

by the time we reached the CBD it had been locked down - there was imminent danger of falling buildings. we looked at what we could, and wandered back home. the exercise was good for us

soon after we got home the power came back on, how lucky were we! boy was straight onto coffees!!

so now here i sit, watching TVONE's coverage of what was our city, of what it now is, on this day.