We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this rather unsettling news bulletin…

I live in Christchurch, New Zealand and yesterday morning I was jolted awake at 4:35 am by the biggest earthquake to hit this area in the last 80 years. The quake measured a sizeable 7.1 in magnitude – that’s comparable to the 1989 quake in California that famously interrupted a World Series baseball game and collapsed a stretch of two-tier highway as well as the recent devastating quake in Haiti.

I have never experienced anything like it in my life. And that includes my favourite carnival ride ‘The Zipper‘.

The quake rocked and rolled for 40 seconds, during which time I jumped out of bed and ran for the door frame and braced myself there in the pitch dark while the room pitched, rolled and slammed and I could hear things in the house crashing and banging and smashing.

Afterwards I was ecstatic to discover that my photography gear had miraculously stayed on its shelf in my office, with the single exception of my Canon 70-200 f2.8, which had taken a nose-dive from the shelf (about head height) onto the hardwood floor. Uh-oh.  It had its lens hood reverse-mounted and the hood had a major crack in it, but the actual lens looks fine. No discernable damage and the Autofocus and IS both seem to be in working order. I’ll have to do some more thorough testing and it may need to be sent to Canon for calibration, but it seems that the lens hood acted as a sort of crash helmet and took the force of the fall. PHEW!

Luckily our house seems to have come through pretty much unscathed. We had our power restored by the afternoon and have running water (although we have to boil it before using due to potential groundwater contamination).

After doing some initial cleanup at home I grabbed my camera and went out for a walk with my partner Brence Coghill to see what we could see, just within a few kilometres of our house. There’s definitely been some major damage to particular buildings. Christchurch has a lot of lovely brick heritage buildings and many of them have suffered greatly. It’s going to be quite a while before the city gets back to normal.

Here’s some initial video from the local news:

Amazingly, so far there have been NO reports of any fatalities, and only a handful of people seriously injured. This is partly due to the timing of the quake, striking when everyone was (relatively) safe in bed, and also due to New Zealand’s strict building code which requires lots of earthquake-proofing measures. Many old buildings here have been retroactively earthquake-strengthened, but unfortunately not all.

Here are some quick pictures of the Christchurch earthquake damage I took yesterday, shortly after the quake hit.

How my kitchen looked at 4:36am after the quake. You can’t see it but there’s smashed glass scattered around the floor as well. Urgh!

Lots of brick chimneys went flying

It’s a bit hard to tell, but this building has actually sunk down into the street as well as have its walls fall off

My partner Brence Coghill also posted some photos on his blog – you can check them out here.

About the Author

Photographer based in Christchurch, New Zealand specialising in promotional & editorial portraits, commercial & advertising photography.