[Geysers] The Christchurch earthquake

[Ron Keam]

[Moderator:  You might regard this as being too flippant.  I have 
copied it off a news item.  If you think that circulating it is legal 
and might give some feel for the reactions of at least one 
Christchurch  resident then I leave it to you to include it in the 
general postings
Cheers
Ron Keam]

Christchurch earthquake: The Aftershock Diary
By Mike Dickison
3:10 PM Thursday Sep 9, 2010

SATURDAY

Kim Hill [New Zealand commentator] is telling us to sprinkle vacuum
cleaner dust over our poo.  In a morning full of surreal experiences,
this somehow takes the cake.  Friends tell me they're peeing in buckets,
or digging latrines in the yard. This being Christchurch, talk turns to
fertilising lemon tree.

Our city's message to the world is a stoic, "Thanks, but we'll cope."
A surprising number of businesses open as best they can, before
realising we've technically had a natural disaster and you're supposed
to be traumatised. It's the spirit of the Blitz, except the weather is
lovely and sunny, and John Key [New Zealand Prime Minister} all the
gravitas of Churchill's stunt double.

SUNDAY

My seismometer is a small plastic Big Bird, which reliably topples
over on about a 5.2. I've had to stand him up a couple of times today.
He's calibrated against readings from the New Zealand Earthquake Bot,
which tweets details of each aftershock (it has three times as many
followers as the Christchurch Press).

Because the Bot takes ten minutes to report, people have been
playing the guess-the-magnitude game on Twitter. They tend
to overestimate.

Some people are completely freaked out. Some are just angry, and
loudly rain curses on the aftershocks-I don't tell them these will go
on for weeks. Some, like me, are sleeping through everything but a
5.0. Everybody's waiting for the 6.0, which like Godot is supposed to
be coming, if not today, then definitely tomorrow. We're oscillating
like Vladimir and Estragon between boredom and despair.

MONDAY

I visited the earthquake shelter at Burnside High, hearing that they
might need water containers. Exhausted volunteers have been deluged
with donations and are well-supplied with bedding, food, and
everything else. Someone donated a game of Twister, especially
challenging in an earthquake. Donated books include The Da Vinci Code
(a perfect opportunity to get rid of one's copy, I suspect), and
Angela's Ashes, in case evacuees need reminding things could be worse.

Good news! Eva Longoria, from the Television, is praying for us. All I
can think is that it's a bit late: Eva, if only you had used your
celebrity powers and intervened with God before He smote us with His
wobbly wrath. Perhaps God only works the cleanup crew.

Huge diffuse disasters are hard to take in, but little ones hit home.
Canterbury Cheesemongers - the best cheese shop in Christchurch -
may have to be demolished, and there's nothing we can do about it.
This, curiously, affects me more than damage to historic homesteads or
friends' houses: a bit of the Christchurch I know is going away, as
will many other bits, all special to somebody.

TUESDAY

More aftershocks. The Burnside High shelter has been hit hard, and
it's been evacuated of its evacuees. I spontaneously decide to spend
the night out of town. Kaikoura is supposed to be quite tolerable at
this time of year. Heading North through Woodend, the only things
damaged seem to be the churches.

WEDNESDAY

Frustration with the aftershocks is boiling up. Two different people
told me this morning's 5.1 caught them on the loo, which rather ruins
your equilibrium for the day. Megan comes up with a potential rallying
chant for an organised anti-earthquake protest:
We wake!
We shake!
We don't want any more quakes!

I'm helping my friend pack up her house for evacuation: cracks in the
cinderblock walls, the laundry turned into a water feature by a broken
pipe, and a hole I can see the outside through. That could be handy
for summer ventilation, I suggest. She is not swayed. We both join the
Facebook group to save Canterbury Cheesemongers, knowing it
probably won't help.

Somebody comments in my blog that the lack of fatalities reveals
divine intervention. Presumably God didn't like Haiti as much as
Christchurch. Perhaps it's our pious name. Wellington, there's still
time to rename yourself: forget Wellywood, go with something more
devotional. Suggestions in the comments.

Twitter has been an indispensable information source, but it's also
fertile ground for rumours. Within a few hours of the quake, there
were fake damage photos and denunciation of the fakes. Now the petrol
storage tanks at Lyttelton are supposedly on fire, and there's a
petrol shortage, both also quashed before they're too widely
retweeted. The best news for a while is that we can drink the water
again: tweeted within half an hour of the press release. I've been
brushing my teeth from a mug for days, and am happy to dump the
stockpot of boiled water sitting the laundry tub. It feels like I'm
flushing away the unreality of the last few days. Now to see what
reality has in store.

Mike Dickison (@adzebill) blogs in Christchurch on Statistically
Improbable Phrases.

For more from this author click here.
By Mike Dickison
-- 


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Ron Keam
The Physics Department
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92-019
Auckland
New Zealand
Phone +64 9 373-7599 extension 87931
FAX +64 9 373-7445
EMail r.keam at auckland.ac.nz
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