Yesterday evening in Christchurch we experienced our first quake. Everything in the house started rattling and we  looked at each other and said something inane like  ‘This is a quake isn’t it?’  It only lasted a few seconds but it was quite unnerving. When is was over I was very conscious of the noise of any traffic outside, wondering if there would be more. Looking it up on the GeoNet it was a 4.4: classed as ‘moderate’.  

I say it was the first one we’ve experienced – there have been some others but we haven’t been aware of them. Apparently you don’t feel the smaller ones if you are out walking. When we were here in January friends texted to ask if we’d felt ‘a 4.1’; we’d been in the park and hadn’t noticed anything, but when we got back to the house a photo frame had fallen off a shelf and smashed.

In mid-February, when we were in Wellington, there was a strong earthquake here in Christchurch (5.9) when part of the cliff in Sumner collapsed. Fortunately no one was badly hurt, but it brings back all the anxieties for everyone. It’s 5 years since ‘the big one’ and until the last month or so they had more or less petered out. However, these recent quakes are apparently all still aftershocks and seismologists say it’s quite likely there will be a larger one within the next year before things really start to quieten down…