earthquake photos

having finally gotten my poor camera to allow me to transfer photos again, i figured i should finally post some of the photos i took right after last month's earthquake. certainly there are better pictures available, but hopefully this will help you see it from our perspective.

not having experienced any earthquakes before, we had no sense of magnitude and actually expected a 7.1 to feel much worse than it did. our upstairs bedroom shook violently for those few seconds, some pots and pans fell out of the cupboards, but afterwards we look at each other, laughed, and guessed its magnitude as a 4.0. it wasn't until a few hours later, not being able to go back to sleep (the earthquake occurred around 4:30 am) because of the excitement, that we wandered outside and saw that not every building had fared as well as our solid little home. we had planned to grab a bite to eat at the daily bagel, but from the picture below, you can see how that turned out. i was originally glad to see that next door my favorite local eatery, the new york deli (look for the red sign), was still standing, but it has since been torn down.

one of the first evidences of the quake, visible along the street just outside of our house, was the strange mud-like substance that lay in small hills along fences and in streams in the gutter. we've since learned that this is silt from the river that forced its way up through the soil when the quake triggered a sudden wave down the river...something like that.

i think my favorite destroyed building, if i can be so insensitive as to call it that, is the one that housed the south of the border restaurant (it was reportedly terrible) on colombo st. mainly i just like that the second-floor bathroom is fully exposed, a roll of toilet paper still hanging on the wall.

one of the shops that i felt bad for was the painted room, a sort of odds-n-ends/antique shop that had just moved into this new location (left) weeks before. its old location (right) was just a block away, and didn't appear to have sustained any damage save for this poor mannequin sprawled awkwardly on the floor. terrible timing.

while the suburbs near the beach didn't fare too well, in general the damage was limited to chimneys falling through roofs, like this sad example in a lovely old home. even now, six weeks later, any residential street contains homes with tarps strapped over chimney holes.

we're still experiencing aftershocks daily (anything above a 4.0 is worth remarking on), and expect the same for the coming months. in one sense, i think we'll miss the experience when it's all over, but don't tell that to the poor people who've lost homes or who are suffering psychologically (which is actually quite a large part of the population). hope this gives you a taste for what the christchurch streets look like - while many of the damaged buildings have been demolished, just as many are still cordoned off, their doors and windows marked with spraypainted Xs and the words "NO GO".

-rachel