It's pretty surreal! We had very little damage to our place apart from a couple of broken plates and one very, very spooked cat. (Who is still spooked) We even had power and water the whole day. It's weird because you know something has changed but there are no major outward signs of it - at least for us!

There's definitely a bit of media overreaction about it, but there are also patches of the city where it was quite bad. There are a lot of old brick buildings in the CBD, they didn't take it too well. Lichfield street looked like an actual warzone. I live just out of the CBD, and our damage was limited to a decent layer of smashed glass in the kitchen.

From what I hear it's quite bad out north of the city where they've build massive carbon copy subdivisions on reclaimed swamps. I hear a bunch of it has turned back into swamp.

Overall the city handled it pretty damn well considering how much actual movement of the earth was involved. And yeah, it's a goddamn miracle noone was killed considering the number of bricks that were flying about the place.

Heaps of hugs to everyone affected by the earthquake. My Aunt & Uncle luckily only had minor damage. Thoughts are with you all.

Makes me feel very far away from my wonderful family. I just want to be able to give them a hug and know it's all ok. They've got cracks in the wall, damaged foundations and fences that have disappeared.

My friends had already organised a week's holiday down there and flew from Auckland to Christchurch early on Sunday morning. I was fascinated to know what they were going to see. They're staying at Dunsandel, southwest of the city, and she was texting me yesterday saying the most noticeable thing for her was the brick chimneys lying in paddocks. And there were a few huge cracks in the ground they saw on the plane ride in.

They didn't have power at her friend's house until about 8 last night, though.

My younger sister is in Dunedin and had just returned from a big night out - so the flatmates were all a bit tiddly - when they felt the quake. Bottles jangled on the shelf and stuff.

I've never even felt an earthquake, I've never lived further south that Hamilton.

Much aroha to everyone who's been badly affected :-)

No power and being in Darkness with glass everywhere and alarms going off was pretty full on. Went for a drive almost every older house with a chimney has damage to it, alot of buildings have not falling down but have massive cracks running through them which I dont think they can fix. I feel very sorry for the people who have lost there houses. I would rather be helping people today then sitting here at work.

I live a few blocks from the Avon river where there was quite significant damage to some roads and houses. Very fortunuately our house which is about 10 years old has survived completed unharmed, and we only had a few things fall over. A TV fell off a set of drawers in our bedroom duting the quake and I was quite convinced it would be broken. It had some damage on it from hitting the heater on the way down, but it still works fine. The power went off, but came back on about 8:30am.

I am so grateful we survived with so little damage, and that no-one was killed. It still feels a bit surreal. I grew up in the Nelson area, and never expected an earthquake like that to strike here. When it happened I was quite convinced it was much bigger somewhere else. Was very relieved when my husband checked stuff on his phone internet and told me it was actually centred near Christchurch.

Xavier said it all - the young hororata man who was thrown from his first floor bedroom as the wall gave way, landed in a pile of bricks beside the car which became written off. Xavier is sore, but fine.

How completely improbable is it that such a destructive event in an area with population 400,000 can occur without loss of life, and even better, with incredibly few serious injuries?

We have given, and been given, help, warmth, assistance and open hearted cooperation with complete strangers, no problems. We have had neighbours being particular to check on neighbours and help. The sense of community and warm good will restores one's faith in people. What a most excellent community is canterbury.

So many people have tales of astonishing happenstance leading to random safety.

And Xavier's comment? "We have been protected by the hand of God"

It's definitely a strange feeling - some areas you wouldn't even know anything has happened but then a few minutes drive down the road and it's major damage! I've heard of entire streets where the houses are all a write off. I live near Kaiapoi which was really badly damaged yet my area is fine - we only lost power for a couple of hours after the main event.

The actual quake itself was really freaky and now everytime there is an aftershock the heart races a bit, thinking is this going to be another big one. We're just really lucky it happened at 4:30 in the morning and not 4:30 in the afternoon. If the CBD was full of people I'm sure we would be dealing with a lot of fatalities and serious injuries.

Thanks for the love and support Jane! It's been a nerve-racking weekend and the aftershocks have been unbearable. But luckily we are all are unhurt and still have a home. Everything that has broken is replaceable. It's a real miracle that no one was killed!

Just had another wee shake. They are never ending. Worse feeling of being woken up 3 night in a row with the house shaking. Sometimes I think it's my mind playing tricks on me and other times the are certainly real.

It still seems surreal to me that this all happened.