Hi all,
thanks for the good wishes.
Am sitting in my ruined house atm, power now on but no water or sewer.
We are permitted to enter the house but not live in it.
Water now out of the house, house has subsided about 150m
the quake occurred at 435 am and by the time I found a torch (the power was of with the quake) the worst was over so I went outside to be confronted by large volumes of water bubbling from the ground, so we dressed quickly and got wife ito my bus which was parked up the driveway.
by this time the water was calf deep outside and inside the house and still rising so because we live close to a river and only 4km from the sea I got my 12 ft boat from its jig and ready it for use, then I heard the neighbour calling me, she was home alone, 7 mths pregnant and confused so went and guided her back to the bus. We had to be carefull because it was dark and bits of my sealed driveway were sticking out of the dirty water so we didnt know if we were going to step into a hole or not.
Ithen went over the road where I knew the lady lived alone but found her daughtr with her.
They could not open any doors so as the water was no longer rising and their house was not flooded I told them to stay put and I would come back if anything changed, then checked with a few other people then went back to the bus to await daylight.
What a mess, they say you have to look after yourself for the first couple of days and that proved true. There was no panic that I saw and fortunately no loss of life. A major factor for us was the fact the houses were built on ex swampy or reclaimed land and liquifaction was the reason the houses slumped.
Relative to tradgedies in other parts of the word this is a non event, but I feel the real stress will come with dealing with insurance companies etc,
any way Im operating on bat power atm as the charger power adaptor was drownedso had better quit now,,,Regards
Bruce