Final update for today
I had a lovely day, as far as any day in which every single creak and movement of your house sends a surge of adrenaline through you can be lovely.
I had long skype video calls and everyone I talked to got to see at least 1 aftershock. Sort of funny, but you do think for s split second “I hope they won’t have to watch the total destruction of my house, hearing me scream in the background”. The worst, when I actually ran outside, was when my dear friend on skype was phoning my mum at the same time to tell her Nina is fine… Woops, but now Nina takes a quick run… But my mum didn’t notice, being on the phone and not seeing me flee the scene ;)
And I guess it is much better when people haven’t heard from something yet and you tell them you’re fine, instead of them seeing images of the 1 broken down street miles away from your home and trying to contact you.
I never went back to bed in the morning because every few minutes tremors would shudder through the house and I felt very jumpy. At some point I noticed I was hungry so I had a nice breakfast and then I got dressed (a bit of a scam really to be wandering around the city in pajamas hours after the real quake).
The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. I took my camera, wallet and backpack and strolled to the market. The mall was closed and slightly leaking, but otherwise it was just any other Saturday morning.
There were a few stands at the market too, interestingly all the bakers who “had all the baking ready anyway”, and my favourite fruit and vege stand. The guy there was giving everyone mandarins and everyone chatted about the quake obviously.
I saw one fountain of water where a waterline had broken but that was all damage I saw. As we were told I didn’t really go anywhere and certainly not in the city centre. A lot of damage apparently there but I guess it is really not bad considering what you see when developing countries have an earthquake. Also some neighbourhoods close to the beach might have to be evacuated because the sewers are broken and with all the rain we had lately it is just a bit wet …
It is interesting to be following the media all over the world, because it sounds all so horrible and here I had a perfectly normal Saturday. I am really lucky I suppose. But it also means that not all of ChCh is being looted, burning down and evacuated.
I decided to work my garden, which I had planned to do anyway, and I liked the idea of being outside where I would be safer than inside. And oh it was lovely weather, I was all in shorts and t-shirt! And boy, the garden needed weeding.
I got really tired after that and tried to lie down a bit and sleep, but every little sound the house makes, makes me super alert and there are still countless tremors and everytime you get the adrenaline rush all over again. There were a few larger shocks as well throughout the day and apparently there might be another big one soon, as most such quakes are followed by a large after quake 1 Richter scale unit less. Which would be 6, still quite substantial.
Well, it’s evening now, dark again, and still lots of tremors. I’m afraid I won’t be able to sleep at all from fear. I’m not really scared-to-death, but natural phenomena just make you this basic-instinct-scared, my body is constantly sensing something's wrong and you try to keep alert to run when you need to. And as I said, with tremors still continuing, every hour or so you think there is something to run from.
But, this was merely to say again that I am fine, that my part of the city is not in panic or emergency status and that I wish I’ll have a quiet night.
Thanks for all the support today, Love you all
