Shock, Fear, Terror

February 22, 12:51 pm Christchurch, New Zealand - "This could be New Zealand's darkest day" according to the Prime Minister. It was a normal day when everything started - besides the fact that it was raining for the first time since I had been in New Zealand. I had just woken up from my nap to start getting ready for class. This is the moment when you will always remember exactly where you were when it occurs. The 6.3 earthquake shook the ground with violent force. I was even on the bottom floor of my apartment complex and it still threw me to the ground. I went under the table as quickly as I could and waited till it was over- I looked out the window and could see the other building across from me swaying with the windows flexing in and out - about 15 seconds later it ended. After that I just looked around outside but still weary of another aftershock stayed close to a doorway. The RA's then came out and told us to gather in the middle of the courtyard. I found my friends and started talking with them wondering how they were, what they were doing when it happened (one of them was actually in the shower!) At this point all electricity was cut off automatically, along with the water supply and internet. Some phone services were also down due to the towers being affected by the quake.

All of us were thinking at first "wow that was amazing I've never felt anything like that before! That was great" Little did we know that it was a 6.3 earthquake and was as serious as it was for down-town Christchurch. About 5 minutes or so after the initial quake a rather large aftershock hit. We were standing in the courtyard when that happened and again felt the ground shake, the trees sway and the concrete flex. It was over quickly this time. Over the next couple of days there would be something like 50 or so less powerful aftershocks that shook Christchurch.

We waited outside there for a while discussing with each other the severity of the earthquake - comparing it to the 7.1 back last September. We all agreed that we didn't think this was even close to that and were feeling confident that everything was fine. We had no idea. For the next couple hours we kept hearing speculation about what happened and what was happening down-town (I pulled out my phone and was able to get a radio signal listening to a special report). The first thing that shocked us was that there were confirmed deaths this time. That makes it worse than the last quake already due to the fact that last time no one died. We also heard that the cathedral was gone. We started getting a glimpse of how bad this really could be.