The first thing to say, then, is that I and everyone I know here is perfectly fine. The second thing to say is how lucky we are. The University of Canterbury is located in western Christchurch, the least badly hit part of the city. The damage out here is miniscule compared to the destruction the news has been showing in downtown and elsewhere. While much of the city still has no electricity, we had both power and water restored last night, and some supermarkets and shops in the area were open this afternoon. So, besides the regular aftershocks, boiling our drinking water and being unable to shower or flush the toilet unless we really have to, the basics of life have largely returned to normal here at Uni.
But that's not to say yesterday was normal. Classes had started here on Monday, so the quake hit on only the second day of the semester. I left my flat at about quarter to one to walk to my first class of the day and second of the week. I was nearly there, walking with hundreds of other students on an asphalt sidewalk through central campus when my legs suddenly started to feel unstable underneath me. I instinctively reached for the chain separating the sidewalk from the lawn to stabilize myself as the ground began to sway more violently. They had warned us at orientation that we would be experiencing aftershocks throughout the semester, but it still took me a few seconds to realize what was going on (it was my first time in an earthquake). I remember my first thought afterwards was wondering if it was safe to be under the big tree I was standing right next to. I then remember looking at a woman who was also holding onto the chain a few feet away. By the time my brain had fully registered what was happening and tried to figure out what I should do, the shaking had mostly stopped. I don't know how long the ground shook, but it felt like only about 10 seconds.
At that time, I (and most people, I imagine) had no idea how much damage the quake had caused. Having never been in an earthquake, I had no idea whether this was a typical aftershock or something out of the ordinary. No windows had shattered, no buildings had collapsed, nobody around was screaming or panicking, and everyone seemed to just be continuing on their way. I thought it quite exciting, actually (the feel of an earthquake under you is kind of cool if you're in a safe place). After exchanging pleasantries with the people right near me, I continued on to class. I ran into one of my flatmates on the way and we exclaimed over the experience. She was going to get coffee, and I walked over to my classroom. A couple other students were also headed there, and though I thought the class would probably be canceled, I wasn't sure. The power had gone out with the quake, though, and the lecture theater was dark. Looking a little more closely, I realized that a bunch of ceiling tiles had fallen and there was debris all over the desks. A student walked up who had apparently been in the room when the quake hit and had had his hand hit by a falling tile. I decided that class for the day was probably canceled, and went back outside to see what was happening.
The flecks are dust picked up by my flash. You can see the fallen tiles.
I saw a large stream of people walking away from campus, perpendicular to my direction, so I joined them (there was no one walking in any other direction). We walked past the entrance to the main square in front of the library, which was empty, and I saw official looking people standing at the top of the steps. The clock tower in the square was stopped at about 12:52. I decided they had chosen to evacuate the campus, so I shrugged and followed along. I didn't get far.
I was standing a little below and just off the end of one of the big buildings on campus, in fact just around the corner from where I had been for the quake, when the first aftershock hit. It was about as strong as the first, and I grabbed onto the same chain I and concrete posts I had earlier (except around the corner). This time, more prepared, I looked around a little bit. I could see the building to my left moving, and the window on the bottom floor looked like those thin plastic cutting boards do when you grab on each end and push together and move your hands up and down. The entire pane was oscillating in and out by what looked like could be feet. The people on the path right below the building screamed and ran down the tiny, shrub-covered rise towards the path I was on. Meanwhile, the lamp post to the left of the building looked was literally moving like a shaken jelly stick. It looked like a movie animation, not like anything that could be real. As soon as the shaking stopped, a lady in a Canterbury vest started waving and shouting "Go! GO! GO!" (perhaps it was Move).
This was when I first had an idea that this might be worse than a normal aftershock, but I still wasn't sure what was going to happen -- I thought school would probably open the next day or later this week. I walked onto the fields where everyone was gathering, and when I couldn't find anyone I knew I walked back to the Ilam Apartments, where I live. There I found a number of other people from my program. Most had been at home when the quake struck, but everyone was fine. There hadn't been any damage at Ilam either. One of them had already talked to their parents (cell networks were up) and had heard it was a magnitude 6.3. So it was at least decently big.
With most people just milling about, unsure quite what to do (they weren't letting anyone back into their apartments), the group of us Arcadia people decided to take a walk past our local grocery store and down the major commercial road. The roads were jammed with people driving home, but we cruised along the sidewalks. I gave Mom and Dad a call on the way to let them know we'd been hit and that I was fine (they didn't know about the quake yet).
When we got to the store, all the power was out (I hadn't been sure if the power had gone because of the quake itself or because of a UC emergency shutoff). Employees were milling about outside, and someone was attempting to make sure everyone was out of the buildings. We continued walking along, with a stop at the liquor store to see the damage:
Andrew knew of a farmer's market nearby and having nothing better to do we continued down the road. All the streetlights were out, and the intersections were self-controlled. Didn't see any crashes, though:
There was very little damage, so we all figured the quake had been relatively minor and things would be back to normal the next day. Still, we checked out all the fallen over items in shops along the way:
The rest of the afternoon was a mix of cooking, slowly hearing reports from the rest of the city trickle in, aftershocks, and just waiting around talking and playing games. The news reports were what really started getting to us. As I've mentioned, until we got back to the apartments, no one really knew what the quake had done. We knew it was big, but not as big as the September quake, which didn't result in too much disruption.
It was kind of like going back fifteen years; I felt like I was in Egypt or Iran. With no power, we had no TV and no Internet. Thankfully, we did have phones, and over the day we would get pieces of news as people called or texted friends outside the city and we listened to the radios installed on the cells (who ever would have guessed we'd use them?). The steeple on the Cathedral had fallen over. Casualties were expected. A bridge had collapsed. The quake had hit only 12 km away and had flattened Lyttleton, the port town just over a hill from Christchurch. Buses had been crushed in the street downtown. A building had collapsed. Or maybe a few. Power was expected to be off until the next day. Water was potentially contaminated and needed to be boiled. The university was definitely closed the rest of the week. Some of Riccarton Mall had collapsed, killing and trapping people. Downtown was blocked off and on fire. We asked locals who had been here for the last quake what they expected would happen. We boiled the potatoes for the noki over the camp stove (Andrew had to save the full pot of boiling water during one strong aftershock by holding it at arms length with one hand and hanging on with the other). I was in my room for that aftershock, and it felt a lot different being inside. I could feel the building swaying and my door jamb, under which I stood, didn't look quite straight. Beyond that one, most of the aftershocks were quite weak, though an occasional stronger one would come through.
It was interesting to watch people's reactions to the quake. Even though we weren't anywhere near the emergency zone, you could still see the reactions the disaster experts talk about. Most people took it in stride and acted as usual, but there were some who actually got quite scared or upset, and it was true that people didn't react the way you would necessarily expect them to.
As we realized that school was going to be canceled for a while, members of my Arcadia group started searching out ways to get out of town. We were in contact with our program coordinator, and she gave us numbers for bus and rental car companies. Not many responses, naturally. We even asked a guy selling his van if he would rent it for a week first (no). Military DC-6s started appearing overhead as we got word that rescue workers and police officers were arriving from around the country.
Then, about 7:30, an hour and a half before dark, the power suddenly came back on. We turned on the TV in the room we were gathered in and sat in stunned silence as we watched the coverage of downtown. Now we knew our facts for sure. The Cathedral had fallen, along with multiple other buildings. 65 were dead and hundreds more trapped in fallen buildings. Roads were destroyed, emergency services were far too overextended, most of the city had neither power nor water. Downtown was a cordoned-off ruin. We watched until the clip started repeating, then turned away from the TV, not wanting to watch it all again.
The entire day had been surreal, and this only reinforced it. After the initial hours, when the streets had been full of activity, the stillness felt strange. At the same time, however, it felt strange to be living in a just slightly adjusted normal while other parts of the city were a disaster zone. It felt odd that we were in the same city, but really had seen none of the destruction. But there was also the strange feeling of being in a city where such a disaster had happened -- it's one of those things you often read about, but never really expect to happen to you at any given time.
Earlier in the day, it hadn't seemed like anything special that no one had been hurt, but after we saw downtown we began to appreciate how lucky we were. Half our group, myself included, had been downtown for hours the afternoon before. I'd bought postcards at a gift shop on the corner of Cathedral Square. One of my flatmates would have been downtown had she not overslept her alarm and come back after class to shower. One of the Arcadia kids was planning on spending the day there if it had been sunny (it was instead the coldest day we've had yet). We'd all spent Monday evening at Sumner beach, admiring the homes on the hills and climbing on a rock formation apparently called cave rock. Cave rock had reportedly collapsed, and a number of homes had been flattened on that hillside.
I don't know what this looks like now.
To take our mind off it, we made a big group dinner of spaghetti with tomato sauce and grilled chicken. It was one of those times when I was happy to be around other people. After dinner I did have to return to my room, however, and work on the fellowship proposals I'd planned to do Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. After moving up to the third floor (dinner was on the first), the aftershocks became much more noticeable. There was a little quiver every fifteen minutes or so, and once every hour or two there would be a more significant shake, though nothing big enough to make me stand up from my desk.
Today life has returned largely to normal in Ilam. As I said at the start, we have power and water, though we're still boiling water and not supposed to use the sewer system more than absolutely necessary. Reports today said water might not be back to normal for up to two weeks. We're still getting aftershocks (including a decent one as I write this sentence). My room just rocks a little minute like I'm in one of those mechanical simulators. Internet was out a lot longer than power and just came back in mid-afternoon. One of my flatmates, here with IFSA-Butler, left for good today: her program moved everyone out of Canterbury, and they're going to go to school either in Dunedin or Auckland for the semester. No whispers of that with Arcadia, and I hope there aren't any. I want to stick it out here (and I'm glad I didn't come with Butler!) I finished up all my fellowship proposals and got them finally sent off, thankfully. I drank our boiled water and ate the last bit of my food (dry Cheerios and tortillas with jelly) until the supermarket opened at 4, at which point I got some bottled water and a lamb steak for dinner.
As for the future, school is shut down until at least the end of next week; they have to check and clean every building on campus (my first class on Monday had just started to get me back into a school mindset, but, hey, I wasn't quite ready for break to end anyway). Because Christchurch is going to be a mess for a while, nearly everyone from Arcadia is hopping a flight south to Dunedin tomorrow afternoon at 4:00. With over 10 days off school and the possibility of losing most of spring break, we're anxious to get out. Air New Zealand is offering $50 flights anywhere in the country, so we grabbed one of those. No solid plan for Dunedin yet -- there are other Arcadia students studying there who we plan to stay with initially, then I think the hope is to rent a van or two and tour the southern portion of the island until class starts back up in Christchurch. We'll see. I feel like I've lived my entire time in New Zealand just like this: never really having time or ability to plan more than a day or two into the future, impulsively going places, and never settling into a routine. It seems like enough has happened to fill a semester, and I haven't even been here two weeks yet. Still four months to go. Who knows what will happen next?
I don't know exactly where I'll be or what I'll be doing these next two weeks, but my Internet access will probably be sporadic and limited. I'll take plenty of pictures, though, and do my best to respond to all of you.
Wishing everyone well,
Reid
This is so well written and interesting, Reid - thanks. Hunter, student, baker, writer - quite a renaissance man! John
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