Location:158 Mairehau Rd, Burwood

Jill Dickie

Location:158 Mairehau Rd, Burwood

I woke to the house shaking violently and hearing glass smashing; it seemed to last forever! I thought about our dogs sleeping in the lounge and worried about them walking over the glass. We got out of bed in the pitch black, found a candle and matches, and went searching for more to see the damage. We discovered we were unprepared for such an event with transistor radio in the garage somewhere; no batteries for torches; and no stored water. Our water is pumped up from a well behind the house. We did however have an old phone which plugged directly into the jack so Steve made calls to family (since the cellphones were struggling to connect). Several wine glasses had toppled out of the cabinet, creating the smashing noise, and a lot of water had sloshed from the fish tank, but that appeared to be the only damage. Very lucky! I felt totally shaken, literally, and sat with a glass of cold water, by candlelight, waiting for daylight and for Steve to find the gas cooker in the garage to make a hot drink. No point going back to bed so I was into the shower and Steve drove round to check on my horses (all ok thankfully) then off to work at SPCA to help with any damage created there. There was an eery feeling driving across town, and listening to the radio on the way was comforting, though surreal. How could this have happened to Chch? Once at work staff swapped stories and got to work with the usual daily routine. All animals in the shelter were just fine, though several cats were very frightened and shaking, and needed some extra cuddles! Since there was no power or phone to continue usual duties, we headed home to attend to the cleanup. It felt better just being at home. In the following days it helped to be around people and be working, though many people called work regarding their lost pets and all we could do was offer advice. Those cats were in hiding and not coming out till they felt safe!!! Now, 12 days later, I still feel on edge, waiting for the next aftershock. Our home has cracks in the mortar between the bricks, the timber floor squeaks as we walk up the hallway, we feel vibrations now from the trucks and buses travelling past, our garage has a very loose wall, and many cracks have opened up in the concrete floor and paving outside. We are luckier than many as the damage appears superficial, but I can't help wondering what might happen if we have another really big shock? If there is one, I really hope it comes in daylight and not in the dark when we feel our vulnerability the most.

Quentin McKie

This is the hallway that the floor was shattered in several places.

Location:23 Country Palms Drive

House split in half, during earthquake. Slowly getting worse with the aftershocks. Floor broken and walls cracking. Slept through most of the earthquake.

Shane Collins

Location:Main North Road Waimak Bridge

I work as an Armourguard Contractor and had just finishing opening up the Ecan gates that lead to recreation area on the banks of the Waimakariri River. When the earthquake struck I had just started on the old Waimakariri bridge. I first noticed a wobbling sensation and thought I had a tyre blow out then I saw the whole sky around me explode in a lightning light show this was due to the power lines in bridgend blowing. At this stage I was all over the road and thought the bridge was going to collapse so I exited off the bridge and noticed the cracks appearing in the road ahead. At this time the entire area was out of power and was in complete darkness. I tried to call the police straight afterwards to inform them about the blackout but telecom must of crashed as my xt phone didn't work.. Luckily my 022 phone was still up and running as I received a call from my daughter asking if I was ok.. I went to the supa centa mall in Belfast where Liquefaction had occurred in the car park, at the time it looked like grey water but afterwards it was a thick grey sludge. The mall had 1 broken window and cracks everywhere in the car park. In countdown food was in piles in the aisles. On the way home everything was in darkness until I got to Barrington which was the only area still with lighted roads.

Gail

Location:Frame crescent

My husband and I woke at the same time to a roar coming through the house, we knew instantly that it was an earthquake coming, we jumped out of bed and started to run to the kids, My husband just made it around the bed before a large chest of drawers and book case came crashing down, if he had been a second later, he would have been trapped between the bed and the chest of draws. As we got into the hallway to the girls room, the house began to shake like nothing I had felt before, it was had trying to stay on your feet, but we knew we had to get the kids. The power was gone by this point, and it was so dark, we grabbed the kids from their beds and sat under their doorways for the next 3 1/2 hours. The house seemed to shake so violently and for such a long time and we could hear smashing glass all around us. We were fortunate that the girls night lights were touches as well, so we grabbed these and their duvets to stay warm while huddled in their door way. Each time there was a break in the shaking, either my husband or I would run and grab supplies, from shoes (to stop us cutting our feet up on all the broken glass, too torches, to taking down what pictures had not fallen down already, one of us stayed with the kids the whole time. As we still had an old style telephone, we were able to make outside calls, so phoned the relatives in England to let them know we were safe as we knew they would be worried sick. Also managed to log on to the internet via dial up to see what was happening as we thought, if it is this bad here, Wellington must be gone, and then we found, it was us that were having the large earthquake. who would have thought?

The next couple of nights I tried to sleep on the floor in the doorways to my kids, I did not want to be far from them, just in case, but in doing this, one can hear the ground rumbling away, the anger in the ground, so no sleep was had- and its the sleep deprivation that finally starts to make you lose the plot. I was not coping in the evening, developing a fear of the night, so my work place flew my family and I to Wellington to have a break and some much needed sleep. All I can say is I work for an amazing company and thank you so much! Having had a few nights sleep, puts you back into a position to cope and get on with life.

Looking back now, and even with aftershocks continuing, it seems more like a movie than real life, nothing can ever prepare you enough for how you will react or feel during it. We have only just moved from Wellington to Rolleston, thinking that we were moving off major fault lines- well mother nature changed that!!

At 4.35am on September 4, 2010, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Canterbury. Christchurch and surrounding towns were badly damaged.

Keir Mac Donald

The doorway we sheltered under

Location:24a Kingsford Street

We had picked up relatives from a Sydney flight in the early hours of Saturday morning and after chatting for a while were just all departing for bed when the quake struck and the lights went out.

Fortunately I was right by our two daughters ( aged 3 and 9 ) bedroom door and was able to grab them and get under the door way in the 5 seconds before the real shaking started.

As the shaking continued I heard our roof tiles landing on the gib above our head and decided to try to shove our daughters back under one of their beds. At that point the concrete slab under us split with a horrifying noise throwing us backwards and leaving us suspended on the carpet above the hole. Thankfully the shaking stopped then and we made a dash for the front door which was stuck shut and had to be forcefully pulled open.

Our family and guests then huddled in the driveway in shock watching rivers of water gushing down our drive and Kingsford St. looked like the Waimak in the moonlight. The sounds of sirens and alarms and car horns coming from the CBD added to the horror.

Our Sydney guests were near hypothermic when our Neighbour ( Legend ) handed us a torch over the fence and we were able to make dashes into the house in between aftershocks to get blankets.

We huddled in shock till daybreak when we could see that a 2 metre wide crack nearly a metre deep had split our section and our house in two. The exterior walls and interior walls were in such a state that confirmed we'd had a lucky escape. A little higher up the Richter Scale or a little longer and brick walls would have collapsed and tonnes of roofing tiles would have rained down on us.

It was not possible or safe to get our cars out of the garage and at about 8am we were contacted and picked up by relatives and taken to a house with power and water in South Brighton. Being able to contact family directly in the aftermath was a much underestimated cause for reassurance and the Coms providers are heroes. If the cell-net had not been operable the feeling of utter devastation would have been overwhelming.

Our 3 year old daughter was hysterical at aftershocks and we have sent both daughters away to relatives in the North Island while we find somewhere to live.

Our home was 15 years old and will now be bulldozed.

Carly

Location:Dominion Avenue, Spreydon

My husband and I woke to an unbelievable show of nature! It took a millisecond to register what it was, but once it did, we both leapt off our bed and ran to our sons' room. My husband was there before I could even reach the door frame, neither of us checked each other, our priority was our child! It was the rolling that stunned us, the floors were quite literally sliding back and forth beneath us. My sister was in her doorway as well and now that the power was out (went out almost instantly) all we could see by was the eerie green light of the burglar alarm (now running on reserve). The first thing I wanted to do was check the house. My heart thumping, I ventured to the kitchen, and tried to find a torch. We soon found candles (placed in the sink), torches, and cigarettes! My husband’s field radio was located, and we switched on as soon as possible. There were already calls coming in from the length of the south island, reporting this unbelievable event! Breathless, frightened people of all ages were calling Radio live to let their loved ones know they were ok. My sister and I took a walk to the end of the driveway to see if our neighbours were ok. Whilst out there, the ground shook again, (for what seemed the umpteenth time!), and we grabbed hold of each other! There were neighbours dashing for their cars, most likely to visit loved ones and Carl and burglar alarms ringing out across the dark night. Thankfully our street lights were still on, probably the only ones in the whole neighbourhood. We went back inside to pour water into containers, and growled ourselves for not sorting our emergency kit sooner! The water pressure soon dropped out, but we had enough for a couple days. My son was mad with excitement, playing with torches and asking a million questions! Some we just couldn’t answer, but the best thing at the time was just offer reassurance that everything would be ok. There were many strong aftershocks, and everyone found us dashing to the nearest door way or table. My son was instructed to stay at my side the whole time, just in case. I paid a visit to a close friend at the end of our street to ensure she was ok. She had a visitor with her so they were fine.

The next day found us travelling to my husband’s work to check on things there. The roads were surprisingly full with other commuters, so the travelling was cautious, making sure we missed all the cracks and piles of silt. By in large, this time has been an amazing demonstration of bravery, community spirit, both local and nationwide. Our hearts go out to all those effected, and to those who dropped their own lives to help those in need. I’m proud to live here in Christchurch, the best city in the world. Carly.

Tegan Dalley

Location:31 boston ave ,hornby christchurch

September 4th

At 4.30 am on a Saturday morning Christchurch got a rude awakening to a 7.1 earthquake, originating from Darfield.

As the earthquake started I thought I was shaking because I was cold, but no it was a whole different story, the scariest morning of my life, so far. When I heard mum shouting out earthquake I automatically jumped out of bed, the fastest I had ever gotten out of bed before, I was in shock, I had no idea that an earthquake would hit a small city such as Christchurch, I was terrified.

While the earthquake continued, my mum, sister and I huddled under the doorframe, hoping that we were safe.

Freezing cold, with no power or lights, I climbed back into bed still suffering from the after shocks, little did I no, the town of Christchurch was an absolute warzone, filled with broken and damaged buildings to looters filling the streets. Homes had been totally ruined, not even safe enough to continue living in their homes.

All the schools in the Canterbury region had to close till the following Monday, which meant we had a week off, still not been able to go to the mall because it was half flooded with water.

The next morning as soon as it was light outside the neighbours came to cheek if we were O.K.It was a hot sunny day after the quake hit Christchurch, which was a plus for some of the residents who had been evacuated.

Kaipoi was one of the badly hit suburbs; they still continue to use portaloos, as they don't have sewer pipes after the quake damaged them, locals set out to help the community clean up the roads of Kaipoi, similar to all the other suburbs that got hit badly. That had been my worst experience ever, I am very used to the aftershocks now, infact I would be very excited to experience another earthquake and everyone survive.

Lucy McDonald

My dad on our roof with our chimney

Location:12 Tosswill Road, Prebbleton

I was screaming my head off when the earthquake started. I ran in to my mum and we got under the door frame and we stayed there for a while. Dad and Billy went down the stairs to check the rest of our house and outside too. I was really scared because our house was built in 1863 and it was wobbling a lot upstairs when the quake struck. Dad came inside the house and said " our chimney has fallen down on our roof - so I went for a look. I saw that there was a plate sized hole in the roof and we saw that some of the windows had cracks in them and we have little cracks everywhere in the walls. When we watched TV One later that day we saw a photo of our house on the news. I am fine now, but don't like all the aftershocks wobbling the house.

Dylan Lange

Me pretending to be strong.

Location:23 Stanton Crescent

I woke up before the quake hit, the room started swaying slightly then all hell broke loose, It took me a second to figure out what was actually happening. I tried to jump out bed knowing that the door frame would be the best spot to be but i couldn't i just got thrown back down so i covered my head and waited for the shaking to stop. When the shaking did stop i grabbed my phone, it being my only source of light with power out, and my way to lounge where i was met by the rest of my family, we found a torch and some candles and just waited till dawn. We only had a couple of things break (a plate and a couple of ornaments) and have no damage to the house (That we know of)