So we landed in Christchurch three weeks after the quake. We tried to get diverted to Auckland as a gesture of good intention, but the airline wanted to charge us an additional 90 pounds each airport tax. Imagine how many weeks accommodation that adds up to!
It was a funny feeling arriving in a community that was definitely in a group "post traumatic" situation and I (Liz) really felt sorry for the city and it's people. We stayed at a backpackers right on the edge of the sealed off area with collapsed buildings surrounding us on all sides. The older, stone buildings had been hit the most as they can't flex. This meant lots of collapsed churches. Evidently, all buildings had been inspected within the first 48 hours and given a green (habitable) or red (condemn) sign. You could see what a really livable city it is as well. Big parks with mature trees, a little brook running through the city centre (sans shopping trolley, big wide roads, great cafe scene - just lovely really.
The earthquake itself was not that high on the Richter scale, but the destruction had been caused because the epicentre was directly under the city centre and not very deep down, 5Km I believe. There were also after shocks on varying magnitude. A 4.5 tremor scared the life out of us after our dinner on the first evening. It lasted about 6 seconds. Then two more in the night waking me up with my top bunk swaying thinking the ceiling would crash in on us (Greg slept through this). The folks in the hostel talked of everything rumbling and the contents of shelves crashing around them. They ran out into the garden, but couldn't keep their balance because of the movement! I couldn't help thinking that surely each quake weakens a building's structure and there were indeed cracks in the walls.
All around town we saw piles of a gray powder type substance. I thought everyone was planning extensions and that it was builder's cement - wrong. This stuff was also a product of the quake and was called liquefaction. Neither of us had heard of this before, so dear readers if anyone could shed some light on what this stuff is and how it relates to plate tectonics we would be very interested - thanks. Apparently it just oozes out of the earthquake cracks in the ground as a type of gray sludge. I comes out of the vents under houses, gutters and grids. The piles were where people had brushed it up ready for bagging away.
The people of Christchurch are real corkers. We were impressed and touched by how the community had pulled together and the whole place had a real buzz of activity as the big clear up was actioned. There were also government TV adds about everyone else in NZ thinking of Christchurch and that everyone should be talking to neighbours, checking everyone is OK and just finding someone to talk to. Quite touching stuff really and perceptive of the government as they obviously wanted to reduce poor mental health problems and community morale.
We set about trying to get Greg better (pain in ear) and to buy a car. I was very happy three days later to leave as we had bought our new motor (all 900 $NZ - about 450 quid)and were about to start our big NZ road trip.
It would be great to see Christchurch back on its feet again and to walk down it's high streets visiting all the nice restaurants and shops :(
Liz
Postscript July 2011: Liquefaction is created when ground water becomes under pressure due to tetonic shifts. It occurs in clay soils. The pressure created by the earth movement mixes the water and silt from the clay together. Under pressure, this mixture needs to escape through openings/cracks in the earth's surface. This gray sludge can cause a lot of damage. So there you go!
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