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:

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Woke me up 300 km's away. Glad to hear that you're OK :-)

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We were down near Invercargill (in Riverton) during the big quake last yaer. It was the first time that the ground has moved under my feet... most disconserting!

I really hope all is well.

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Good grief, that was far worse than I'd heard - glad to hear you're ok Markco.

Cheers guys. Back at work today, I'm a psychologist at local hospital, people shaken but not stirred it seems. In my office lots of books on the floor and and computer fell over but no other damage. Probably few patients in as I'm in a chronic injury rehab service rather than acutes. Some time to read forums maybe

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

An interesting phenomenon, little sand volcanoes erupted in peoples lawns as a result of ground liquefaction:

http://drquigs.com/images/rsgallery/ori ... CH2172.jpg
http://drquigs.com/images/rsgallery/ori ... G_3572.jpg

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Good grief, wierd stuff - is the ground below unstable and dangerous to walk on then?

Good to hear you're okay fella.

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Crikey! I hadn't realised New Zealand was so shakey! Lucky that no-one was killed by the looks of it. Glad you made it through ok, sounds like it'd have been scary to go through.

Did those volcanos have actual lava coming out of them into peoples gardens? Or were they just sand but similar shaped? Sorry for the ignorance but I've never been to anywhere that has volcanoes or earthquakes.

My understanding is sand geysers were one of the phenomenon in the New Madrid quake in 1812, as well; some were as much as 50' in height. Good to know everyone's OK, and thanks for the pictures, I've not seen any good ones of the sand geyser phenomenon, though apparently you can see the evidence all over Southern Illinois still.

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SG

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Thank for the report, Markco. Good to hear that the no one was killed. Whenever I hear about a natural disaster, I always think about our Epic brethren and if they've been effected.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

Good to hear that you are safe and I hope that everything gets back to normal soon.

Ta guys, yep that's what those sand things are Spectrar.
Now day 4, and aftershocks up to 5.5 continued last night, people starting to suffer some sleep deprivation.
My secretary said "I want to punch this stupid earthquake in the head!" which made me laugh.
I might see about volunteering at a trauma help centre I used to work at, though building is damaged it seems.

I'm amazed at the number of cranes, diggers etc that seem to be swarming all over the place. Wonder where they were all hidden before the earthquake? Estimated 100'000 buildings damaged, losses at $1-2billion+ US so far.

For the moment I've packed away the epic stuff that was on my painting table!

University looks like a mess, hate to have to clean this up!:

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Good grief! hope no-one was in the library. Nasty.