Just over 24 hours ago I was shaken out of bed at 04:36am local time by a 7.1 Richter scale earthquake (for comparison recent Haiti one was 7.0). Biggest I've experienced, tremendous noise and hard to stay on my feet swaying about in door frame in pitch darkness. Aftershocks up to about 5.5 have been continuing, another one shaking screen as I type this right now in fact. Fortunately no great damage where I live, though the aftershocks, sirens and helicopters have made it rather difficult to relax...
Eastern part of city was hit harder with ground liquefaction, sinkholes and flooding.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake
Some pics of local damage:
Power is now back on in most places, with water, sewage taking longer... most amazing thing so far is absence of fatalities and low injury rate. Strict earthquake building codes, lower population density (only about half million people) and time of day helped out a lot in comparison to Haiti. 130km hour gale force winds and rain due to hit soon though which will likely cause more damage.
Anyway... my mate who lives nearby has these cool before and after photos of his epic collection that was on shelves! Luckily they all seemed to retreat in the right direction (bar one exocrine that hopped down a shelf to join the orks and squats!):
Before:
After:
