The Aftermath of 22 February 2011

So it's been months since my last post.

Three days after that post, after having been able to freely travel my city; we were literally thrust up into the air two metres and slammed back down, shaken from side to side in one of the world's most devastatingly powerful earthquakes.

My city is literally in ruins.

The magnitude 6.3 earthquake had a force of 2.4 times gravity flowing through it, and the epicentre at only 5.9 kilometres deep close to the heart of the city was a fatal blow. The Red Zone, a large area of the central city, has been closed now for months.

And in those months we have constantly been hit by aftershocks ranging from 3.0 to the low 5's in magnitude. There has been no rest for the wicked.


This past Monday, the 13th of June, we were hit first at 1pm with a 5.6 magnitude aftershock. An hour and twenty minutes later we were rocked yet again by a 6.3 magnitude aftershock.

Words cannot begin to describe the feeling of having the earth feel like it's being pulled from under you; of listening to the buildings surrounding you shudder and shake under the pressure of the lateral movements.

Before Monday, something in the range of 900 buildings were to be demolished in the central city. Watching as the earth finally stopped moving and the ominous dust cloud rose into the sky from the Red Zone was a sick feeling. We have lost even more buildings.


But it's not just buildings that are affected by earthquakes. We have lost copious amounts of infrastructure; ranging from roading, to sewerage, to water and power. My heart goes out to those people that have been working for months since February, trying to get working water and sewerage back to many parts of the city; Mother Nature has made the past nine months a doozie of a time, but this was a cruel, cruel blow.

We have been resilient, we have laughed off and dug up our roads and driveways; we have cleared debris; we have grinned and bared so many aftershocks. But some of us have had enough. Monday has proved to be one too many earthquakes for some of my fellow Christchurch people.

And I don't blame them. As of right now, going back to the 4th of September when we first began having earthquakes that were even remotely strong enough to alert people of the fact, we have been through 6915 of the bastards.

That equates to 27.22 aftershocks per day.

But it is not the actual case. In the twenty four hours following the 5.6 and 6.3 magnitude quakes on Monday, we had 86 aftershocks. It's hard to comprehend, even for me.


I think the people of Christchurch have lived through enough earthquakes in the last nine months to account for the entire lifetimes of the population of New Zealand and Australia combined, at least!


But for now, I've got years and years worth of work here in Christchurch. For me, there is a huge silver lining to this darkest of dark clouds.

I will not bail on my city.

I will stay true to myself, to my fears, to my loved ones, and to my goals.


I will rebuild Christchurch.