Shakey Isles 2016

Last night around midnight we were woken by a lot of shaking in the form of a 7.5 earthquake that was centered in the South Island (near Kaikoura).

It was the biggest earthquake I've even been in and also the scariest, as we took cover in our bedroom (including Mia, who took shelter under our bed and wouldn't get out) we heard a lot of smashing sounds - I was certain it was our windows, fortunately for us it was only a few picture frames falling over.

This is pretty much as bad as the damage in our  home got - we are very lucky

We are very lucky - we still had electricity, internet and clean water. A lot of other people weren't so lucky and many of our friends in the lower lying suburbs had to evacuate their homes due to the threat of a tsunami.

Glass smashed in the central city by the earthquake, the glass from these windows was still on the footpath below

Although Wellington was fairly badly hit, our friends in the South Island were much worse off, particularly those is Kaikoura and the surrounding area. They are completely cut off by road due to slips and various other areas of the country have sustained pretty seriously damage.

I don't remember an earthquake being felt so far and causing so much damage to so many places in the past.

Glassons on Cuba Street 

Neither of us could go to work today, we both work in high rise offices buildings and all of these buildings need to be checked by engineers before people can return to work. At this stage Rich can't return to work tomorrow. My building has been checked, but its damaged, so I am not sure if I can go back yet.

T2 on Lambton Quay

The message today was to stay out of the city, but that's a little bit hard when you live in the city and its your home. We did go for a walk and despite what the media said about Wellington being a "ghost town" there were actually quite a few people around and cafes open. The city is a ghost town on Christmas Day - it was quiet today.

We are safe, but really didn't sleep last night and there were a lot of aftershocks last night and today. Here's hoping tomorrow is a better day x

My life and earthquakes

So a few blog readers have asked me a few things about earthquakes - so I thought I'd do a bit of an earthquake related post. You see I've pretty much always lived with earthquakes (except for my year in South Korea). Earthquakes are just a part of life in the areas of New Zealand I have lived in and generally they don't both me or anyone too much - in fact I don't notice a lot of earthquakes that happen. These latest two earthquakes all relate to a fault line in Seddon in the South Island.

The earthquake in Wellington was scary and a lot of media coverage has been about Wellington as it is the capital city - with lots of tall buildings and a large population. However, many smaller towns in the South Island were much worse hit than we were. Here's a photo of a house in Seddon after the most recent earthquake.

We didn't have any damage to this level in Wellington thankfully - you really have to feel for the people that own this house though. Image from here.

As I say I have always lived with a lot of earthquakes, in fact I'm not sure when earthquakes weren't part of life. You are taught from a very young age to get under you desk/in a doorway/under ANYTHING when an earthquake hits. So much so that's pretty much instinctive. 

In my home province of Taranaki we had quite a few earthquakes, however the earthquakes at home were more rolling and less violent. Often by the time you realised it was an earthquake, it was already over with and there was no need to get under your desk. Besides I spend most of my childhood concerned that the dormant volcano our whole province had been built around was going to explode again and destroy everything.

Yes it does look all serene and calm - but its dormant and not extinct. Scientists think there was last volcanic activity here approximately 350 years ago. Image from here.

Some people have asked is Wellington built to cope with earthquakes - the answer is yes as much as any city can be build to cope with earthquakes. 

Wellington was badly hit by the Wairarapa Earthquake in 1855 - it was the strongest earthquake recorded since colonisation had begun and it is thought to be between 8.1 - 8.3 on the Richter Scale. The earthquake literally lifted new land up from the ocean. 

There are a lot of fault lines running through Wellington - we often get warned about the potential of the "Wellington Fault" and the harm it could potentially cause the city.

Crush zone? That does not sound good at all....

So some of you may be thinking, with the threat of earthquakes and why would anyone in their right mind chose to live in Wellington? I have thought that myself from time to time, after all, I'm not a native Wellingtonian.

For my career - I really need to live in one of the big cities - Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. I love visiting Auckland but its not somewhere I would ever live (its too spread out geographically and I couldn't walk everywhere) and well as I'm sure you all know if I want to move to avoid earthquakes then moving to Christchurch makes little to no sense. I would dearly love to live in Dunedin - but finding work there is just about impossible for me.

I do know that life isn't all about career - but you do have to do that you love. So in addition to my career Wellington has some of the best friends I have ever made and also there is also loads happening here and its also quite beautiful, so why would I live anywhere else?

Plus its only mother nature going crazy - in so many parts of the world people are tearing each other apart every single day. It's just nature and no one can control nature.

Here we go again!

Well it happened again guys - another fairly big earthquake - this time it was Friday afternoon around 2:30. I was at work of course and I work on the seventh floor of a twelve story movie. Our building moved A LOT and although I know that is a good thing it scared the bejeebers out of me and pretty much everyone else too.

Once the ground FINALLY stopped shaking (although the aftershocks just kept going) and the outside of the building was checked we were sent home. Rich and I live in the central city, so we had no problems getting home as we walk everywhere. But those who live further out of the city and rely on public transport (especially the trains as they were all cancelled) had trouble getting home.

But we are all fine here - kind of freaked out but fine! Rich and I went for a walk a bit later on in the evening and the city still seemed to be pretty lively. The night market was up and running despite the shake.

Here's hoping this is our last big shake for a while, I just got a text from my work saying I can actually go into work on Monday as our building isn't damaged. So I guess we will just all keep on doing what we do in our wee city. 

I hope you all have a super weekend that is completely earthquake free!

Shaky Town

So a lot of you will have heard already that central New Zealand was hit by a fairly big earthquake (6.5 magnitude) at around 5pm last night. I'm pretty used to earthquakes, we get them fairly frequently, but this one was pretty scary. Rich and I basically bolted to the nearest door frame when it hit and our apartment was unharmed, a few things fell off shelves but no real damage. There has been some damage to the city and neither of us were allowed to go into work today due to our offices needing to be checked for safety.

The media has been saying all day that people should stay out of central Wellington, unfortunately Rich and I LIVE in the CBD so we can't avoid it. 

Despite the earthquake damage, we decided to leave the apartment and go for a walk along Oriental Parade to calm our nerves. However we saw some signs of damage along the waterfront. 

I'm not really sure what this stuff is floating in the water - it looked like polystyrene. When we looked over the water to the working part of the harbour we could see at least one shipping container had fallen into the ocean, perhaps this was part of its contents?

This earthquake left us wondering - was this crack here before? I don't remember it! This is a conversation we had over and over again whilst out walking.

From this view, you wouldn't even know I lived in shaky town!

I hope you all had a good weekend, and that it wasn't shaky at all.