Paul Nicholls of Christchurch has customised a Google Map to show a time-lapse view of the aftershocks to Saturday's 7.1 magnitude quake:

Mr Nicholls is an E-Learning developer with the University of Canterbury.

"The university is closed this week due to the quake, but I've been able to do some of my duties from home," he told NBR.

"I've seen pictures which show that the area I work in seems to have escaped major damage. There's just a lot of stuff strewn around the place after falling off shelves."

Click the image end of story to see Mr Nicholls' animation.

Meanwhile, a joint community effort has seen a crowd-sourced Google map created to show which areas are security-cordoned, the location of clean water, open roads, portaloos and open KFC stores, among many other services (use controls upper left to navigate, or click here to view within Google Maps).

View Christchurch & Canterbury Earthquake Map - What's open? in a larger map

SEE ALSO: Video of first faultline flyover