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7.1 quake hits New Zealand's South Island

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Most damage caused by an earthquake in NZ in almost 80 years apparently. It's a miracle no-one was killed. Hope everybody there is ok and that things will be back to normal for them soon.

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I lived in Japan for 9 years and about three years ago we decided to go for the easier life and move to Christchurch. Felt a goodly number of earthquakes in JP but nothing like what hit us the early hours this morning. And CHC has very few earthquakes. We awoke to this violent shaking and terrible noise. And then it just got worse and we could hear things crashing and falling all over the house. Power was off so we were struggling in darkness. Fortunately we brought a modern new brick town house that survived with no damage structualy. But anything built pre-70 has copped it bad. The inner city has many old historic buildings which sadly have been destroyed. I went to the local corner shop early this morning to get extra batteries. But the shop and the five adjoining shops were totally destroyed. Also came across an old brick two story house which had lost all its walls but was amazingly still standing. The front of the lovely Ethiopian Church on Edgeware street had completely fallen away. And yet today is a glorious spring day with clear skies and bright sun. It seems very surreal, like last night was a dream. But if I look out of my window from where I write this I see one neighbour has a collapsed roof and another is on his roof covering up the hole where his chimney collapsed. The incredible thing is, and you would have had to experience the earthquake to understand and witness the damage to realise how incredible it is, no one died.

An act of God followed by an act of passion from the same guy.

If the moderater wants to give an email address I'd be happy to send a few pics although there are already thousands on the web.

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Simon. What wonderful news to hear that there were no fatalities. Thank you for the news.

“She was a beauty, we were thrown from wall to wall as we tried to escape down the stairs to get to safety,” he told the AP

Knowing the Kiwis' tendency to understate things, it must have been truly horrific.

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So the news hasn't been updated yet to reflect the downgraded magnitude?

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An act of God followed by an act of passion from the same guy.

Yeah we all know God hates older buildings. Thanks for the write up Simon but o need to go superstitious on us.

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It was probably the worst earthquake that I've felt yet. The rumbling sound beforehand (possibly the quake before the 7.1 quake) is what woke me up and the shaking was very violent - a couple of things fell over in my bedroom and the lava lamp in our living room fell over also but nothing broke. My flatmate and I live in a suburb of Christchurch that didn't lose any services (power, phone and water - although our water pressure was low for a while afterwards) and our flat doesn't appear to be damaged at all so we can consider ourselves to be very lucky. I felt the 7.8 earthquake that occured in Fiordland last year but the shaking for this one was definitely worse, given the depth and how far away from the epicentre we were. Admittedly, I went "rubbernecking" once the sun had risen but we are very lucky not to have had any fatalities at all. Walking around the CBD, I had the feeling that the irony of the day was that it was an absolutely perfect day - the sun was out, it was relatively warm and there was no wind at all.

I am very impressed with how the NZ Police, Civil Defence, Christchurch City Council and the New Zealand Government have reacted to this, especially Christchurch mayor Bob Parker.

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i was in auckland when it happened, but apparently the tremors were felt all the way up to hamilton. it is a miracle that there were no human casualties, but a lemur at christchurch zoo drowned because it was trapped in its enclosure.

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