Aftermath of the quake...

It's been good catching up on some sleep this morning. The aftershocks today have died down quite a bit (in terms of frequency and intensity) which is certainly a relief. Also, the strong winds forecast haven't quite eventuated yet, though I am starting to hear them blowing outside now.

Looking back, I have to say that I'm impressed with the speed and effectiveness at which emergency services have managed to cope with the situation. Hats off gratitude to the linesmen and watersupply guys and gals out there for working so hard and getting our essentials up and running again so quickly. I seriously thought we were going to be stuck without these for quite few days still, which would've been quite nasty with the cold nights over the past while.



I've just uploaded some very quick snaps I've taken of the damage around home, and of a trip to the supermarket this morning to get some more supplies (it would've been shopping day yesterday, compounding problems).

Some highlights from the shots around home:

From Christchurch 4Sep2010 Earthquake

From Christchurch 4Sep2010 Earthquake

From Christchurch 4Sep2010 Earthquake

And from the supermarket:

From Christchurch 4Sep2010 Earthquake

From Christchurch 4Sep2010 Earthquake

From Christchurch 4Sep2010 Earthquake

Taking a bit of a drive around our neighborhood, it seemed that most houses were relative ok. The most significant damage was to chimneys, which had either totally or partially collapsed (revealing the inner tube, with some bricks jutting out at various angles), while other (plaster-cast) ones had long cracks running down the middle of one side. We're really quite lucky that we had demolished ours earlier this year (while redoing the roof), as otherwise it would almost certainly have come crashing down through into the living room (or worse).

Apart from chimneys, fences (short and tall) were also affected, with of those having crumbled or fallen over. The University (closed for a week) also has a bit of cleaning up to do in places, in particular the libraries where a million books have been thrown off shelves as the shelves have collapsed into piles of dominoes.