Tremors prolong terror
BY MARTIN VAN BEYNEN
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Darfield resident Sharon Smith thought she was in a horror movie. Not far away Di Roberts thought a train was running into the house. Hotelier Richard Hawes in Diamond Harbour initially suspected a violent storm.
Una Collins, 79, in Wainoni, Christchurch thought she was dreaming.
Within seconds they and about 300,000 other reeling Cantabrians knew only too well they were in a disaster.
The quake, centred about 40km west of Christchurch near Darfield, struck at 4.36am, Saturday, delivering 7.1 on the Richter Scale, making it comparable to the Haiti quake (also 7.1) in January.
The first and most devastating jolt lasted about 30 seconds and was severe enough to set the bells ringing in the cathedral tower. Numerous aftershocks kept people on edge.
In that first juddering tremor most of the damage was done. Roads cracked, water and sewerage pipes ruptured, railways line buckled, walls toppled, chimneys fell, and historic buildings fractured, causing damage estimated at more than $2 billion.
Miraculously no-one was killed. Two men in their 50s were seriously injured, one by a falling chimney, the other when bricks and mortar fell on his taxi in Manchester St. Gidro, a lemur at Orana Wildlife Park, was not so lucky. He drowned in his moat as he tried to flee with his mother.
The timing of the quake probably prevented fatalities. Few were out in the streets, even in the central city, and people were not cooking, which prevented fires breaking out. Families, although asleep, were able to contact each other quickly.
A modern, relatively prosperous city suddenly had curfews, a state of emergency, political leaders flying in and people clamouring for supplies in scenes reminiscent of Third World disasters. City streets were strewn with rubble, farmers were unable to milk their cows and hospitals and medical centres dealt with a run of minor injuries.
The immediate impact was massive disruption including widespread power outages, water supplies cut off, water contamination, sewage disposal problems, business destruction and dangerous housing. The population was profoundly rattled.
The airport closed so officials could inspect runways and the domestic terminal was evacuated for a short time while cracks were inspected.
The port of Lyttelton sustained tens of millions of dollars of damage, chief executive Peter Davie said.
After the quake Christchurch looked like two cities. Some areas looked entirely normal, others, like the central city, looked like a bombsite. City suburbs like Dallington, where almost every chimney was down, New Brighton, where sludge and water ran through the streets, and Avonside, where houses listed and roads folded up, were worst hit. The Darfield area, about 10km from the quake's epicentre, suffered harshly.
Stories emerging from the quake reflected universal shock and disbelief. What disturbed many people was the dark as they huddled in doorways wondering when the shaking would stop and whether they would survive.
Richard Hawes thought the worst as the council-owned, 130-year-old Godley House which he leases with his wife Michelle in Diamond Harbour, Banks Peninsula, "wobbled like jelly".
"I thought I was going to die. I really did. We were sleeping on the first floor and I thought it was going to collapse."
A large piece of brick wall above their bed luckily fell away from their bed instead of on it.
Darfield's Sharon Smith thought she was caught in the movie The Exorcist.
"The bed was leaping off the floor. I've never been so scared in my life," she said.
Recent Canterbury signing Sonny Bill Williams was on the third floor of his downtown apartment block in Christchurch.
"I thought the roof was going to fall in. I just stayed in my bed buzzing out in shock. It's Mother Nature. You can't mess with that," he said.
Una Collins said she jumped out of bed to be flung to the floor, where she crawled over to her husband.
"It's the most frightening thing I've experienced and I've been through quite a lot. My budgie Pippie can say Mommie and the little darling was calling out."
Shirley resident Kevin Wall went through the Inangahua earthquake (also 7.1) in 1968 when living in Hokitika.
"This was a hell of a lot worse. The dog got such a fright when things started falling over, he shit himself."
When rattling began at Viv Montgomerie's Avonside home she thought the cat was scratching at the door.
"When I got up it like I was in a boat. It was rolling, absolutely rolling," she said.
She quickly gathered her 18-year-old daughter Gabrielle and partner Rick Garner and huddled in her bedroom doorway, waiting out the tremors by candlelight till dawn. "The door became our little house. We didn't want to leave it."
Garner, who is a builder, said the house would need to be bulldozed.
After the after-shocks died down the family pulled out a gas stove and made a surreal normal breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast before getting in the car and braving broken roads, barriers and floods to reach Montgomerie's parents in South Brighton.
Dallington's Gordon Lewis said sand volcanoes erupted in his yard and his swimming pool popped out of the ground. His 70-year-old house was history, he believed.
Many Cantabrians experienced disturbingly close calls.
In St Albans, Christchurch, Brian Wheeler heard his mother's china cabinet rattling and jumped up to save it. As he did the entire outside wall of the house collapsed onto where he was sleeping.
Canterbury homestead owner William Cottrell, of Glenroy, said he escaped his bedroom seconds before tons of debris crashed through the ceiling as two brick chimneys collapsed and smashed through the roof of his beautifully restored 98-year-old house, Gunyah.
He jumped out of bed just before it was crushed by bricks and was left "knee-deep in bricks" and with an injured leg.
James and Pru Kilshaw were rushing out of their St Albans home in the middle of the earthquake when a power pole crashed through their fence, barely missing them.
"We heard this almighty crack. I just dived to the ground," said Pru Kilshaw.
Mayor Bob Parker spoke as the damage to his city emerged in a bright sunny Saturday, one of few in Christchurch this winter.
"There has not been a house or a family in our city who have not suffered damage in some way," Parker said.
"But this is a city working together to do what we can before nightfall.
"We are not looking at a levelled city but we are coming to terms with the damage which is a bit like an iceberg, there may be significant structural damage underneath."
Police were soon spreading out throughout the city and the region after the quake. By early morning much of the central city, where many old buildings had lost roofs, walls and were sporting severe cracks, was closed off with checkpoints at almost every intersection.
"Don't you know that building is condemned," an officer screamed at a man trying to get to work past the destruction, which rendered the streets ghostly quiet.
Al Stewart, of the Canterbury Police, said reports of looting were incorrect. Police had dealt with two men who had thrown a brick through a shop window to help themselves. Residents' behaviour was "predominantly good".
A curfew in the central city and at Kaiapoi, about 20km north of Christchurch, was imposed between 7pm to 7am, Saturday to Sunday.
Once the scale of the disaster sank in, residents flocked to Christchurch supermarkets, emptying the shelves of bottled water and other supplies.
By 9am Saturday, the central city Pak'NSave was bustling with emergency shoppers and had already run out of bottled water and candles. A Hornby Pak'NSave store manager told Fairfax the supermarket had run out of necessities such as batteries, water, milk and candles.
"We've run out because nobody was prepared for this like they should've been. It's been crazy," he said.
Supervalue and Freshchoice marketing manager Phil Power said the biggest concern would be ensuring food continued to be distributed over the next week from North Island suppliers.
Petrol stations also coped with panicked motorists, but Sam Park's service station in the coastal suburb of New Brighton could not take advantage of the boost in trade. When Park arrived at work he found the forecourt had lifted about a metre.
On New Brighton Road, water was spewing up from broken pipes causing flooding and mixing drinking water with the sewage. The walls of the area's pumping station had cracked meaning the mains could not be turned off.
Kevin Wilkes was one of many on Saturday filling buckets from the river to flush his toilet.
"We didn't have much damage but it was pretty scary at the time," he said.
The worst hit residential area was Kaiapoi about 20km north of Christchurch. Sewerage and water pipes were fractured and local homes and businesses were flooded. About 20 buildings in its centre were severely damaged, including Blackwells, one of New Zealand's oldest department stores.
A swing bridge across the Kaiapoi River broke in the middle. Many households lost water and power, and the Waimakariri District Council advised those in badly affected parts to leave the area while officials worked to restore services.
Crucial investment in earthquake strengthening saved some of Christchurch's most important buildings but the city's heritage had still suffered a terrible blow.The facade of the Repertory Theatre in Kilmore Street was reduced to rubble. Churches like the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church, St Cuthbert's (1862) in Governors Bay, Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Lyttelton (1860), and St John's Church in Hororata suffered major structural damage with parts of walls dropping out and parapets falling.
The Very Reverend Peter Beck, Dean of Christchurch, said the Anglican Cathedral had fared remarkably well.
"My thanks go to council for all that earthquake strengthening work. Without that we would have had major damage."
City council environmental policy and approval manager Steve McCarthy said at least 125 commerical buildings in the city had "serious to semi-serious" damage.
Lyttelton's unique Timeball Station, built in Lyttelton, in 1876, which was strengthened about five years ago, survived reasonably intact although a large section of chimney smashed through part of the roof. Some water damage was caused when the sprinklers went off.
Timeball Station's property manager Jan Titus wept when she saw the damage. Most of the work to bring the station up to a prime condition had almost been finished, she said.
Renowned New Zealand architect Sir Miles Warren was left wondering if he could ever restore his beloved Ohinetahi homestead.
The quake collapsed four upper gables and sent stones crashing onto the building.
Ohinetahi was only one distinctive Canterbury homestead damaged. The well-known Deans family Home Bush homestead came close to being flattened and the Bangor homestead was also damaged.
Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend said impact on businesses would be "awful", with those that had offices in unstable buildings likely to face weeks of lost revenue. "Everyone I talk to is just in shock. It is a huge hit for businesses."
He said the businesses had so far shown incredible resilience and would recover, despite costs that would spiral into the billions.
Yesterday emergency and council workers were busy restoring services. About 90 per cent of power supplies had been re-established by last night and about 80 per cent of people had water and were able to flush their toilets.
Schools are to close today and tomorrow and much of the city will remain shut until Wednesday. Many workers will find their workplaces need major repairs and clean-ups.
An accurate picture of the damage has yet to emerge. Whatever it shows, as one Kaiapoi resident cleaning up yesterday said, "things will never be the same now".
- © Fairfax NZ News
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