Thanks for people's concerns. Power has been off so no net access. Plus there is stuff to do.
Summary is me and mine are basically fine, there will be a few hundred dead, which looking around at the buildings that went, could be considered lucky, and rebuilding sewers, economy, homes, will be something we are still talking about in 5, probably 10 years.
It was incredibly bad luck to get a second shallower and almost right under the city. A mag 6 was expected following a mag 7, the hope was that it would be further away.
Here is the quick update I've been sending friends.
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Hi - Family, house and cats all fine. We are in the lucky part of town where the damage is the least. We have water but not yet power. No visible damage at all really in our suburb. But a lot of the town is properly devastated this time round.
I was in the central city at the time and we had one person killed, several trapped, as a fair bit of our historic building collapsed. I was under a desk watching bits of ceiling fall in and bricks from the top floor rain down.
Sandy was at her clinic across town and her problem was that pipes broke, ground liquified, so in minutes her car was swamped and had to be abandoned. She got a lift home from a bus driver who abandoned his route to bring her to the door.
Kids were just finishing lunchbreak, so were safely outside.
The problems now are lack of power (so we have been out of communication with the world - I am typing this from our printing press on the outskirts of town where I can get a powerpoint and internet connection). The sewers are stuffed, so we shouldn't be using toilets (but with water going, most people still are). We have not had to go down to shops as we have a freezer of stuff going off, plus a vast supply of pasta/tinned tomatoes and other earthquake basics. But actually, food and fuel can get into Christchurch pretty easily, so no fear there.
Law and order not a problem, and everyone is helping neighbours. We have been looking after the oldies down our street, who need reassurance as much as anything.
Longer term, the town is looking to be in for a very hard time economically as the central business district looks inoperable for months and the fixing of roads, sewers, electricity will take years (they will be patched up in weeks, but rebuilding will go on a long time).
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