Nathan's Recount

We have just had a big earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale in Christchurch.  At 12:52pm both my brother and I were at school.  I was typing at the computer in the classroom when it happened and my brother was playing outside on the Jungle Gym.  When the room started shaking I dove under the computer desk but then decided that it would be safer to be under a door frame as the desk didn’t look that strong.  I stood under the door for a little bit with Mrs Mac (my teacher) until it was safe to go outside.

I ran out on to the school field mainly because that’s where everyone else was going but I did seem to remember that it was the right place to go.  Some people from my class were pretty scared but I wasn’t, just a bit shocked that there was a massive earthquake.  Our Caretaker had a big emergency radio which he was listening to; it looked a bit like a ‘boom box’, it was the only way that we could hear the news as there was no power.  He told us that it was a ‘6.3’ but I thought it was bigger than the 7.1 we had on September the 4^th but I guess I was asleep for most of that one.  We got told to keep warm and huddle up.  The worst part about it all was that it was starting to rain and we were getting wet!  The second aftershock came while we were out on the field and it just made things worse.  More people got even more frightened and scared and it just kept on going.

As this was all going on a few kilometres away on the 4^th floor at the University of Canterbury my Dad was having lunch with his colleagues from the Management Science department. When the quake struck they all dove under the coffee tables to take cover!  They commented to each other that it was a big earthquake and contemplated whether they should evacuate their building or not.  Their decision was made when they saw that concrete and debris that were scattered in the stairwells of the building.  Dad collected his belongings and casually walked down to the ground level and collected his bike.  He wasn’t aware of the damage that this earthquake had caused in the rest of Christchurch.

My mum was walking into the kitchen when the earthquake occurred; she stopped right in the doorway and tried to keep the pantry door shut so that the food, drink and storage items didn’t fall out.  After the shake she carried on with her day to day jobs as if nothing had happened nothing had smashed and everything seemed OK.  Dad rang mum and asked if she was alright, he told her to come get my brother and I because he had been evacuated from his building.  It was just as well he did as otherwise Thomas and I would have been at school until 3:00pm!

About 5 minutes after the first earthquake children’s parents came pouring into Merrin School, I was so amazed at how fast they got from where ever they were to the school in such a short amount of time.  My mum was there about 15 minutes late, she asked Mrs Finn (the principals secretary) if there was anything that we could help her with, she just said that the only thing that they needed help with was comforting the little kids (year 1’s and 2’s) and anyone that felt sad or not that good.

Teachers were handing out chocolate biscuits and mallow puffs which looked so good; to the kids who needed comfort or didn’t have their mum or dad with them the only problem was I was really quite hungry and I didn’t get one!  After a bit of comfort for some frightened kids, which didn’t take too long because most of the kids were to shy to admit that they needed a cuddle and some comfort, we headed home. The roads were pretty quiet except for parents getting their kids, all the commercial buildings had been evacuated so the neighbourhood was pretty quiet, it was a bit like being in a ghost town but not as freaky.

When we got home Dad was there and safe which was good but there was no electricity.  It was so painful; I felt like doing an Indian Rain dance so that it would go back on!  We couldn’t use the oven, elements, open the fridge freezer or anything that requires electricity! I decided to read my book because that didn’t require electricity.  By dinner time we still didn’t have any power so dad cooked steak, onions and eggs on the barbeque, it was challenging cooking the eggs on the barbeque but it worked and they tasted good.  At 8:00pm we got power, the first thing I did was turn on the T.V; even though I don’t watch T.V often I wanted to watch the news to see what it looked like in other parts of town because I had heard it was bad. There was an extended news channel which you could watch rather than listening to the radio.  We watched that for about half an hour then I headed to bed, I was pretty tired.