Earthquake

I realise this is not book related but my home country of New Zealand was hit by an earthquake 2 days ago (Friday 3rd September - EDT). In NZ it was 0430 on Saturday 4th September. The earthquake rattled Christchurch - the second largest city - and measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. A large number of buildings were damaged. Fortunately no lives were lost.

The last earthquake I lived through was 33 years ago - in 1977. It measured 7.7 (Ruchter scale) and I was in school at the time. I can still remember running out of the classroom and jumping down into the large dicth that ran alongside the buildings. This ditch was a good 3 feet across and I knew I was never going to be able to jump across it. So I jumped down into the ditch and then had to climb up the other side while the ground was shaking underneath me. Very scary.