Witnesses to quake's destruction

The cloudless blue sky over Canterbury belied the chaos on the ground as those at the epicentre of yesterday's quake struggled to come to terms with the devastation.

In Christchurch and its surrounding rural communities, stunned residents emerged from their homes to a world literally changed overnight.

In the worst hit areas hills appeared where once their was flat land, tarsealed roads and footpaths fractured, fences fell like dominoes, mud bubbled from the ground, and rubble from unstable masonry littered roadsides.

In daylight the true impact of the 7.1 magnitude quake that shook the region unmercifully shortly after 4.30am was inescapable.

Residents, many still in their dressing gowns or with blankets wrapped over their shoulders to keep out the sub-zero temperatures, huddled outside their properties or in small groups on the street, swapping stories of survival and near misses.

In Christchurch's central city the streets were at a virtual standstill by 7.30am as curious residents ventured out to survey the damage as aftershocks continued to rock the region.

There were signs of damage everywhere. In Kilmore St the striking heritage facade of the city's oldest theatre, the Repertory, had been reduced to rubble. In Madras St the rear end of a BMW car had been flattened by falling masonry, while in Colombo Street the verandah above a cycle shop had been ripped away and was dangling precariously over the road.

Elsewhere in the central business district one side of a Mexican restaurant had collapsed and glass shards from broken shop windows littered the streets.

The magnitude of the quake left Nawaf Almalki, a Saudi Arabian who has been living in Christchurch for about a year, too scared to venture back into his home. He and his mates stood on the street, wrapped in duvets, unprepared to go inside in case another large quake struck.

''This is the first time I've ever been in a quake  it is the most frightening thing,'' he said as another small tremor sent the ground beneath him rolling. ''I don't want to go back inside.''

Staying outdoors also seemed the safest option for many of the tourists in Christchurch for the weekend. Cathedral Square was awash with stunned holiday-makers, many of whom were frantically trying to call home on cellphones to assure their loved ones they were safe.

A couple of kilometres away in the riverside suburb of Avonside motorists had to negotiate large cracks that had appeared in the roadway, while in the seaside suburb of New Brighton petrol station owner Sam Park arrived at work to discover his forecourt had been raised like a deck of cards and sewage and water was spilling on to the street.

Damaged water and sewer pipes caused surface flooding in isolated pockets throughout the eastern city.

''I've never seen damage like this,'' said Park. ''It's unbelievable.''

Disbelief also showed on the faces of Kaiapoi residents, who emerged from their homes to discover whole sections of their town covered in a sticky sludge. The old swing bridge across the Kaiapoi River had concertinaed and mud swamped cars and houses, leaving residents facing a mammoth clean-up operation and the prospect of days without water.

Nigel Smith spent the morning using his four-wheel drive to pull stuck cars out of people's driveways.

''Something like this brings people together,'' he said as he pulled another car from its muddy resting ground. ''It's amazing how everyone has come out and is helping each other.''

In Darfield, where the earthquake was centred, locals could not believe the changes that had occurred to the landscape.

''This used to be a perfectly straight piece of road with no hill at all,'' said Craig Smith as he stood on Highfield Rd, which moved more than three metres in the quake. In the neighbouring paddocks the swathe of destruction cut by the earthquake was plain to see. For hundreds of metres the earth had been ripped up and the land scarred with deep cracks and ruts.

''I'm just gobsmacked,'' said Smith, whose mother Sharon, lives in the area. When she woke up yesterday morning she thought she was in a horror film.

''I thought I was in The Exorcist. The bed was leaping off the floor. I've never been so scared in my life,'' she said.

Her house was spared any major damage by the haphazard path of the earthquake but her neighbours were not so lucky. On one side the family's house was virtually torn in two while on the other, her neighbour's home suffered extensive structural damage.

The neighbour told the Sunday Star-Times her house was shaking so much when the earthquake hit she could not move or do anything. ''It was absolutely terrifying. The noise was horrendous. It's something I never want to live through again - ever.''

- © Fairfax NZ News