My quake – a dark night for Christchurch

Christchurch’s latest earthquake has changed the face of the city and etched the reality of this awful event on our lives in a few seconds.

The quake which struck on Tuesday afternoon finished off any heritage building that had survived the September 4, 2010 devastation.

It seemed incredibly more powerful because it was almost right under the city and it happened in daylight when everyone was at work.

Any thoughts of saving the city’s heritage fabric were quickly buried. Huge diggers moved in within a couple of hours to remove debris from streets and clear the way for rescue efforts. But it wasn’t only older heritage buildings that were hit this time.

Some of the city’s modern edifices constructed within the past 20 years were either severely damaged or destroyed – the PGG building on Cambridge Terrace near the banks of the swirling Avon River collapsed, the 24 -level Hotel Grand Chancellor has a distinct sag in one corner, the Copthorne in Durham Street is now the leaning tower of Copthorne. Totally crushed cars litter some streets.

Everyone has their own story. I was driving on a stretch of road alongside the Avon River when my car trip began to feel like a roller coaster ride.

The road literally opened up before me with cracks nearly a metre wide and eight feet deep.

The road surface concertinaed. Luckily I’d already hit the brakes and so had other cars travelling beside me.

I looked at the river which was quietly boiling away and rising, turning a dirty colour.

My wife, Frances, was in Victoria Square standing talking with a friend when the quake thrust up the pavement beneath her.

My daughter, Alex, who had just moved into an older inner city second level flat watched the adjacent buildings collapse across the road from her and fled on foot.

My other daughter, Cathy, who had also just moved into her first flat with five other students was terrified as the old wooden two level house bucked and the chimney collapsed. They all got out safely and she made her way home on bicycle, just three weeks into her first flatting adventure.

Back on the road, motorists directed each other through the cracks and over the least buckled surfaces.

I made my way home to discover a river pouring out of my street. Much of it seemed to come from my own front lawn accompanied by the jelly-like liquefaction.

Silt covers the street and my front lawn nearly a metre deep in places.

Neighbours quickly got to work with shovels to clear a passage for the water which continued to stream from goodness knows where.

I watched from my roof as I hammered apart what remained of my chimney, mindful that we’d be in for a night of aftershocks.

As darkness set in I headed for my 90-year old father’s house in New Brighton, normally a 15-minute trip that took 40 as cars picked their way through the busted road surfaces and water everywhere. Some cars had gone into holes, their front wheels trapped, drivers abandoning them.

The night was deathly quiet and black as I made my way around the old man’s place to spot him sitting in his rocking chair with a candle going, stoic like the old soldier he is.

“Thank God, your Mum’s not here to see all this.” In the first quake I couldn’t shift him but this time he was glad to come home to my place. I got his gumboots on and we made our way arm in arm down the watery drive and began the journey back. 

But first I visited his neighbours – survivalists who have an artesian well and a generator – and filled my large water bottles.

Arriving home with an elderly gent was another challenge and we stumble/walked in torchlight along the street through the silt and water to my house where family was ensconced, candles and torches glowing dimly.

Through all of this our phones were going incessantly as family and friends checked on each other and compared damage and swapped stories (one of the best was a friend’s mother who was driving through Lyttelton tunnel which she reckons visibly buckled and rolled – she kept driving) .

But it was hardly the end.

All through the night the most terrible aftershocks rattled and rolled our old villa. We only leaped completely out of bed three or four times when the cracking and rolling seemed bound to break the timbers or the windows.

Frances and I arose at 5am, drank some cold water, had a quick sandwich, visited the garden for morning relief and drove through the western suburbs to Environment Canterbury’s temporary headquarters at the university where she began her shift at Civil Defence.

The eastern side of town seemed in better shape and some places even had power and water.

Now we’re listening to the latest reports. Today is quieter. The big Air Force planes that flew over the city yesterday have landed, the helicopters and smoke dissipated as we begin to count the cost.