'When the rocking stopped the shouting started' | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

Hawke's Bay Today reporter Caitlin Nobes was visiting family in Christchurch when the city was shaken awake at 4.35am on Saturday by the big quake. She describes her experience.

Few of us wake up clearheaded and logical, so I am not surprised that my first reaction to a 7.1 earthquake was: "Where am I and why is it shaking?"

A millisecond later I was in the doorway, listening to glass smashing and trying to remember what we were meant to do in an earthquake. The door jamb was rocking above me. It felt a lot like severe aeroplane turbulence. When the rocking stopped the shouting started - we were all okay.

My mum found a working torch somewhere, probably exactly where she kept it "in case of emergency" and we gathered in the hallway.

Technology is an amazing thing. Within seconds cellphones and MP3 players were out. My sister and I got in touch with our dad, who lives in a historic building in the central city and National Radio kept us updated throughout the morning.

In a cold, dark, frequently shaking house that voice of calm telling us what police, Civil Defence and Government were doing was proof the world was still out there.

We explored the house and found remarkably little damage. Bottles of fizzy drink had leapt off shelves, knick-knacks and crockery were scattered and a cupboard full of important papers had been emptied across the lounge.

My mother looked at her daughters and said "it's fine. It's just stuff."

The cell network was overloaded as everyone checked on loved ones, and when we got through to my father he was outside.

His apartment has brick walls and artworks and even the brick dust coming down were hazardous.

Outside, he spent a lot of time keeping people away from awnings and buildings.

It is instinct to get under cover but, as the photos show, sheltering beside an old building is not the safest place to be.

Torches flashed over the fence and across the road as neighbours explored their own shaken homes.

The three of us were in the hallway when the big aftershock hit.

The first earthquake felt like someone had grabbed the house and was shaking it up and down.

This second quake was more like the Earthquake House at Te Papa - rolling waves shook our legs and threw us off balance.

There was little we could do at 5am so we climbed back into bed with the radio on and waited for dawn. Sleep was not forthcoming, I had Carole King's I Feel The Earth Move going around my head, new information kept coming from Radio NZ.

Aftershocks were frequent, although none as severe as those in the first half hour.

Lying in bed we could hear the quakes coming, like a big truck on a nearby street.

We became blase about getting to doorways.

 At about 6am we decided it was better to be up and busy than awake and waiting.

We were worried about an elderly neighbour who lives alone and knocked on her door as soon as we were dressed.

She had been awake and had wrapped up well against the cold.

She had already talked to friends in Canada and family in Copenhagen.

A strange side-effect of the lack of power was the matching lack of visual information.

People outside Christchurch knew much more about what was happening than we did because they had the TV and internet. We knew little of the damage in the city - phrases like "facades falling on cars" are meaningless until you see what a wall of bricks can do to a car.

Chimneys appear to be the greatest suburban hazard. A friend woke to one falling past her window, while a colleague's cars will never be the same.

A walk around the neighbourhood showed remarkably little harm.

It was hard to believe the earthquake had really happened, especially when we found the Farmer's Market open, selling fresh flowers, bread and cupcakes.

A two-storey geyser from a broken water pipe on the walk home reminded us that water was going to be an issue for days.

Perhaps the most surreal part is that normal life started resuming so quickly.

Many supermarkets were open by midday, although water and bread were hard to find.

The elevator in Mum's office had a sign saying: "Please don't use the elevator. It makes a scary noise." And police patrolled the four streets that isolate the CBD.

Structural engineers have been into my father's his apartment and given him the thumbs-up, but the building still has a yellow warning sign on it.

More than 50 aftershocks have left us acclimatised, although a 5.2 shake at 1pm yesterday  had me back in a doorway.

For now we boil our water, share our stories and marvel at how efficiently the city has started dealing with the situation.

That no one was hurt has been described as a miracle, but miracles are made of luck and planning.

If the "big shake" had happened just 12 hours later I would have been in a cafe on High St, around the corner from some of the worst affected buildings.

At 4.30 on a sunny afternoon the city centre would have been bustling, malls full and cars covering roads.

The university library would have been full of students preparing for Monday's start and many would have been crushed by falling shelves.

Instead, we all got the most frightening wake-up we're ever likely to  have, but no one was killed and only a few were seriously injured.

We should be incredibly grateful we have the infrastructure in place to keep hospitals open and have experts  assessing damage within minutes. The earthquake that destroyed parts of Haiti and millions of lives was 7.0 on the Richter scale. Years of concern, planning and strict building codes mean the most  Christchurch people have a home with power and water.

Canterbury has lost some beautiful buildings. Churches, homes and businesses have been wrecked, but no lives were lost. Repairs will take a lot of time and money, but we are lucky to have come through this so well.  Like my Mum said, really it is all just stuff.