Quake rattles Canterbury sport legends

Two heroes of Canterbury sport were rudely awakened by the quake that hit Christchurch.

Steve Gurney and Dick Tayler were both asleep, and after being woken up, feared for their lives while the city shook.

Multisport legend Gurney was caught starkers after fearing he'd be crushed by his house.

Living in an 80-year-old concrete house, he immediately thought it was going to collapse.

''I bolted out of bed and went to the blinds, I pulled the blinds right off the wall and climbed out onto the roof. There's a rose bush [underneath my roof] so I jumped off the roof super Spiderman style onto the bank, stark naked, cut myself on thorn bushes and clung onto the thorn bushes freezing for 15 minutes, scared that the house and me would slide off the cliff.''

He said his house didn't sustain much damage though, bar a few things which fell off shelves and he still has power at home.

He said he was still feeling aftershocks long into the afternoon.

Former Commonwealth Games gold medallist Dick Taylor said last night's earthquake was the ''most scary thing'' that has happened in his life.

Tayler, 62, was asleep when the quake rocked him awake, ''the sheer noise of it was incredible. I leapt out of bed and crawled into the doorway and waiting for the rumbling to stop.''

''After that I quickly checked Stuff to see what had just happened.''

He said his apartment, the second storey of an eight storey building, was damaged by the quake. ''Some of the windows popped out and the neighbours windows were smashed.''

Tayler's niece was staying at his apartment but, amazingly, slept through the whole thing. ''I don't know how, but she did,'' he said.

Tayler, who won a gold medal in the 1500 metres at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, said it is lucky that most city residents were asleep at the time of the quake, or there could have been serious loss of life. For now though, he is focussed on the aftermath of the quake, one of the biggest in New Zealand's history.

''We are still getting aftershocks, and you don't know whether one of them is going to be a big one.''

- © Fairfax NZ News