http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

Looks like Christchurch has had a biggun. Reports are a bit sketchy!

yep, saw that a few mins ago they must be getting a bit sick now

This is really really bad.
That was quite large, bu tmore the abruptness of it. All our alerting went off almost at once and we lost a lot of gera from racks.
Just watching a bit of live streaming – PGG building has pancaked with 200+ people in it, what was being hand carried out was not pleasant, buses squashed, cathedral has lost its top into cathedral square, i’d guess there will be many many deaths and injuries, hospital evacuated. Furrrck. Seriously Furrrrk. Sorry mods.
This is the first time i have felt real proper fear and I am in Wellington, supposedly where its most likely to happen. I’m getting out my office because it’s sh1thouse safe in an earthquake. Its awful.

That doesn’t look like fun, I hope everything’s OK. 😥

65 dead so far according to the PM.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10708043&gallery_id=116912#7379726

Very sorry to hear about this, I would make all of the preparations and contingency plans that you can. Farewell!

One of best friends and his family live above christchurch harbour not heard anything from them , Col do you know if the telecommunications are down

Looks very serious, places I remember just wrecked.

Very worrying. Most of my family live there, obviously not able to make any contact.

Supposed to be off to Christchurch next week for a month’s holiday to take the kids out to meet family. No idea what’ll happen now.

Not nice. Got pals and a good friends family there.
Horrible.

Girlfriend just flew in there two days ago 🙁

Nothing on facebook/sms yet…

Thanks for reporting my previous post, I’m glad that you know that I don’t have family or loved ones over there. Humour is just one of the many ways of dealing with tragedy. As you may not have noticed the first sentence pointed out that I wasn’t taking anything away from the seriousness.

Thanks again. 😥

I’m in NZ, North Island – TV news is saying that elec is off in most of Chch, and phone networks are overloaded. They are asking people to text if possible rather than ring as it uses less bandwidth, and if you find out that someone is safe, post on their facebook wall etc. to say so, so others can see that they are safe and won’t continue to clog the networks trying to contact them(they’re unlikely to be able to post to say they’re ok due to no elec and jammed mobile networks).

not good. Just spoken to some friends who live in the outskirts of christchurch, phone lines are intermittent at the moment, seems the quake has affected the city centre the worst.

Stainypants – Member

One of best friends and his family live above christchurch harbour not heard anything from them , Col do you know if the telecommunications are down

Lots of telecomunications are down at leat half the mobile network and power.

It’s a real, real mess down there. A great many of people are trapped over 200.

Some injured are being flown to Auckland and other emergency departents. Folk can’t get in or out of the CBD, so if you are trying to contact people it’s tough, as they may not have acsess to working phones etc. The TV station there has been destroyed.

It’s not too flash.

Texted my mum first thing this morning in Wellington, all the ChCh relatives accounted for but not much more news. Couldn’t get through to Wellington on the landline. Waiting for news. It’s awful.

Just heard from friends and brother and family who are in Christchurch and Queenstown, glad they are aright. 😐

Local news (TV3) just upped death toll predictions to 2-400. Wildly inaccurate I’m sure, but it will certainly be worse than 65.
Bro & Sis in law, & G’ma OK. Other Bro in law on USAR team, right on in there.

Thoughts and best wishes to all involved, it’s been a shit year for natural disasters Downunder 😥 The ANZAC spirit will pull through though!

I’m still waiting to hear from my cousins down there – they live in the suburbs, so hopefully not badly hit. Heartbreaking though- it’s a lovely city.
Fingers crossed…

I’ve a couple of friends in Christchurch too, no idea if they are ok or not 🙁

I’m guessing communications /internet /mobile network are down at the moment.

Kev

Good luck everyone

I can update some info as I’ve been working all night on the power control systems down there, well trying to anyway :-}
Mobile comms are pretty ,much all on battery power, most of which only last 8-10hrs. I know tcl and vf are recharging some sites with generators and also boosting signal strength to cover more area. Power is firked basically, approx 50-70% disconnected. Central city won’t get power for days/week as too dangerous to put back on given massive drainage damage and liquifaction (have you ever seen that – it;s insane). Internet sporadic, some 3G/gprs data is still working, some ISP’s are OK as well strangely but only those with decent backup generators. Its sporadic.
Don’t call, use txt only as this saves the mobile network capacity and it’s fully on the edge. That was a really weird shake, we lost quad cards out the back of servers in racks, they were literally thrown out, these take a hard push with two hands to get in normally so that was the sideways motion. Incoming capacity (internet and voice) is maxed out , we’ve been watching some stats and you’ll struggle to get inbound calls connecting to NZ full stop quite a lot of the time. Ditto internet bandwidth internationally has been quite heavy. The damage is quite localised though to central city and surrounds within say a 10k circle of lyttleton, beyond that some damage but minimal and power/comms ok’ish. Problem is that main trunks are through CHCH central. Telecom centre there is closed/gone.

I’m in Wgtn just now, anyone needs info or specifics email me or post here as I’ll be here all day now inbetween small naps !

Terrible terrible event though, i was in tears yesterday watching the carnage unfold. And shitting myself as i sit in my brick building in wgtn which is allegedly due a big one.

As an aside i got a text at 3am from a dear friend of mine that said “View from up here amazing. Yes still on L11 with no stairwell but wine rack close at hand and imminent death avoided. Hopefully out soon. xx” – bizarre, she got out this morning.

Hang in there mate!

Just spoke to mate who’s Mum and family live there and they are ok(they live in the suburbs) We were really worried about a mate who lives in the CBD as we hadn’t heard anything until half an hour ago. All ok. My wife(a Kiwi from the North Island) is really upset. My heart goes out to all those people who have not been so lucky. Stay safe guys! Our thoughts are with you!
Brennan and Steph

Good article here , the Press building was very much munted.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4693057/The-day-the-earth-roared

I’m another one in Wellington just shocked at the devastation just a few miles south.
Been speaking to a couple of pilot friends who have been flying ambulance flights in and out. They told me the scale of the destruction is if anything worse than it appears in the media. Incredible number of aftershocks as well, one of them said he felt 4-5 decent sized shocks while waiting on the tarmac at Christchurch airpport for patients.
Thankfully all my friends and colleagues in Chch have been accounted for and no serious injuries, just rather shaken by the events. A couple had a terrrifying time in particular in the new control tower at the airport which was swayed a huge amount during the quake.

For anyone looking for friends/realtives there is a google person finder set up:
http://christchurch-2011.person-finder.appspot.com/
Also the Redcross personal enquiry line is + 64 7 850 2199

If you feel like making a donation….

http://www.redcross.org.nz/donate
or
http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/giving-back/donate-online/disaster-appeals/canterbury-earthquake-appeal/

Laters, i’ve got to go to chch, will update later.

Result, found someone there who can do it. Thank goodness, don’t need me clogging the place up.

Cheers for the links, pomona. It’s the least we could do to help the homeless and dispossessed. I hear that some of the suburbs are flooded in places, so that even if the buildings still stand, they are unusable.
NZCol, keep up the good work! I won’t insult you by calling you a ‘hero’ but it sounds like you are doing something vital in somewhat adverse conditions, and despite your own very real fears. Good on you, especially for keeping us updated!
All my Chch mates are doing ok, even the one whose ceiling began to collapse whilst we were on Skype! Best wishes to all in NZ.

I’m a pansy mate, i’m shit scared and most definitely do not want to go there 😉

The heroes in all this are the people yesterday and today who helped others, saw stuff they will never forget and put themselves in dangerous positions to save others. There are amazing tales of bravery from ordinary people, there’s SAR, Police, Fire, Ambo and medical staff all of whom have families, kids, parents etc but have to put that aside and do their job. THAT to me is heroic. The impact of this cannot be underestimated. I was somewhere when it happened and got a barrage of txts from our monitoring. We switched the TV on and instantly became aware of the situation. Standing in a room with people in tears. Not good.

Don’t do youself down, Col.
‘The heroes in all this are the people yesterday and today who helped others.’
In a time of crisis people rally round.
Wellington got scarily shook up, too, from what mates tell me. I was fb’ing with someone in telecoms there, which is how I realised what was going on with my Skype feed.
You are all in this together. I’m a hapless bystander, but I can cheer you on!

Didn’t feel it in Wgtn afaik. I certainly didn’t. It was so shallow that it would have been tiny here. Problem was it was a horizontal movement of about 1.5G, that’s what’s dealt to the buildings. Things not looking too hot for some of the major building collapses.

I didn’t feel it in Welly either, although I think it has scared a lot of people here more than the Sept quake in ChCh did.

Fully has me spooked. Got home briefly last night – got earthquake box out of garage (just moved house), refreshed everything, new blankets, filled 50l of water etc and checked house plans of new place for biggest piece of steel to stand under !

Sorry, guys, is Tory Street not in Welly?

Its about 100m from where I am sitting and where i was yesterday when it happened. I assume you mean the Telecom building there ? I dount they would have felt it there quite honestly. While you’re at it can you get them to fix my adsl at home please – its been 4 days since it stopped working 😉

Yeah, Col, 5th floor certainly shook!
pm me about adsl and I’ll give them a rocket, hero!

I found this link with some pictures that give you an idea of what it’s been like for people there. I live in Auckland and it’s kind of odd with life going on as normal.

Cant get it to work

Just heard that one of my work colleagues from Christchurch airport tower has tragically lost her life. She was buried under a collapsed building in the CBD.
Makes it seem all the more real when it’s someone you know even though I only met her once.

sorry to hear that Pomona 🙁

I received a txt msg from my friend who lives in Christchurch and thankfully he and his girlfriend are ok. he said there’s hardly any network & power although his girlfriend has managed to msg us all on Fb this morning.

Kev