Tremor 'like a bad movie'

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BUCKET LOAD: Former Southland woman Stephanie Lamont, now living in New Brighton, collects water from her neighbour's artesian well after water was cut off to her home following the 7.1 earthquake on Saturday.

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"It was like a bad movie," Southland-born woman Stephanie Lamont said after the Canterbury earthquake hit early on Saturday.

Speaking from her home opposite New Brighton beach yesterday, Ms Lamont said she awoke to the earthquake and her bed shaking.

"I just thought, `oh my goodness'. The whole room was shaking. I could hardly even stand up."

She went straight to a door, where she could see her son Luke, 18, getting out of his bed yelling "oh my god". Everything was black.

"He just said, `I love you mum'," Ms Lamont said. "We thought this was it. It was huge and it seemed to be quite vicious."

Ms Lamont stood in her doorway with her son while yelling out to her youngest daughter Emma, 15, in her room upstairs, with no response.

"Everything was shaking up the stairs. She (Emma) had just got straight under her bed. There was enough movement that she didn't feel she could come down the stairs."

Ms Lamont said things were falling off the walls and Emma's photo frame had fallen and smashed but they were lucky that was the only damage.

Once the shaking had stopped, Ms Lamont said she and her two children searched the house for the car keys to get out.

"We thought a tsunami would follow at that stage and didn't realise the location of the earthquake."

Driving around in the dark, the family noticed cracks in the road.

"We were driving over big humps in the road."

Ms Lamont said she saw damage on the streets, houses down and fronts of buildings out on the street.

Once they arrived in the city the street lights were operational and they could see the full extent of the damage.

Realising driving was not the right idea they returned home to a freezing cold, dark house.

About 6am the electricity came back on and they turned on the television news to see the impact of what was happening.

"It was a shock. We were lucky to be alive."

The family's water was cut off until yesterday and they survived with a bucket they had filled for flushing the toilet and with water from a neighbour's artesian well.

Yesterday, Ms Lamont was woken by another aftershock.

"They frighten you.

"They wake you up like big jolts," she said.

The family were still feeling vulnerable and although the supermarket was open things were not back to normal.

"That was a big shake, and in the back of your mind you think it could happen again," Ms Lamont said.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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