5.7 and 6.3 yesterday

This is what it looked like in town after the earthquake... everyone was trying to get to their children and then home...

This is what the city looked like right as it happened... all this dust is from the collapsed buildings and the general shake-up.

And this is the beautiful liquifaction sand that volcanoes up everywhere. THIS time we didn't get any of this in our lawn or in the driveway but it was all around us.

I was teaching choir for the 5.7 and the school was evacuated. Then I got a call from Maria in Auckland saying "Dom is okay and he will head into town to get the kids soon" (but it turns out the traffic was that bad leaving the airport that he couldn't go... and he had no petrol...) - Maria kept calling back to me/Dad/Dom to keep us in touch with each other (we can't call out on our cellphones but you can occasionally get calls from Outside). When all the children at my school were accounted for I got a text from the Telecom phone tree emergency service saying that I had to go and immediately pick up my children from their school. I signed out and headed into town... People were already starting to queue up at the petrol stations and traffic was bad... My kids were the last to be picked up and poor Lucy was hanging onto her teacher's hand like "the last kitten in the petshop window". As we were stuck in traffic on Montreal St (by Latimer Square) the 6.0 hit and the car really rolled around. I was surprised because I wasn't driving but we were moving all over the place... I put the car in Park and then just tried to talk the kids through it. We were beside some enormous trees that I thought might lose branches, and we saw Rod (Dad's best friend from school) come out of his apartment at top speed with his son. Thankfully they were okay. The historic buildings opposite the old CGHS buildings (ummm, now an empty lot) collapsed further and we saw the dust cloud right in front of us... The police and ambulance were there within minutes and the street was blocked off and we were diverted around Hagley Park. I really don't think they will be saving those buildings anymore. Not too long after we made it home Dominic turned up. I was relieved as everything is better when he is around. The house wasn't toooooo bad. Another broken mirror, the piano moved a good 2 inches, everything was tossed off the shelves and plaster dust was everywhere. I think the worst off was Lucy, who was so scared in the 6.0 that she almost vomited. Everyone slept well last night though, we all slept through the 4.7 at 2am.

I guess we just have to accept the reality that while this is "unusual on a world scale" it is our norm - the aftershocks will just keep coming. I am just thankful that we are all safe and our house is liveable. Many people are not so well off.