Earthquake!

We had a very rude awakening this morning when a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck, followed by masses of aftershocks. The earthquake was extremely jerky and noisy, with the house thrashing around and stuff smashing. It lasted about 40 seconds, according to news reports. Of course it felt like it went on forever as we huddled under the door frames. The aftershocks sound like thunder rumbling in the distance, and are very scary. Some are quite a jerk. We've been up since the earthquake struck at around 4.30am. A state of emergency has been declared. We got off relatively lightly because our street is intact, everyone around here is fine, and we only lost wine and chutney plus some of my precious bits and pieces. Older houses have lots of damage, especially to brick and mortar, plus lathe and plaster linings. Miss Dog is freaked out and keeps barking every time she hears a noise, and of course, every time there is an aftershock.

Johnny is going around to see a plumber he knows to see if he can come and fix our hot water cylinder. It moved so much that the pipes are all leaking at the joints, plus it snapped the earthquake ties off the wall.

Oh gosh, there goes another one. I am very nervy, so every time the earth moves again I get a big fright. I've still got a lot of tidying up to do. The pantry was the worst because the jars of homemade chutney from the top shelf fell down, landing on some smashed bottles of wine and a big broken jar of olives. The house smells like a ploughman's platter in a pub. I'm very sad that Grandma's white chicken egg dish is smashed to pieces, and some of my pretty china. I haven't found any of my very special primrose china pieces broken yet, and Nanny's gorgeous tea set survived because the top cupboards didn't open. As you can see from the photos lots of items were thrown around the rooms, and the drawers all around the house were opened. We don't have lots of tall furniture, especially in the bedroom, fortunately.

I am very sorry that Nanny's shop in town has suffered extensive damage, especially to the facade. We saw it on the news. It is typical of the type of buildings that have been damaged because it is a very old brick building. Fortunately there are no reports of deaths in the city, and only two seriously injured people. The timing of the earthquake saved a lot of lives, I would say. Lots of people's houses have been badly damaged. Miss Dog, Monty, Johnny and I are very lucky, as are our lovely neighbours. Clean up duty now. XXX