Well, I don't know what has consumed your Sunday (or what will, since I'm in the future), but what I have been doing is hiding under my table and shaking REALLY hard!
No, I haven't gone mad or paranoid while in the mere 2 weeks I've been here, but today I experienced over 30 earthquakes and some have been quite big.
It started Friday when I was in class, and all of a sudden there was a deep rumbling, my pen started rolling down my desk and my vision went blurry as the room shook around me. My teacher just crossed his arms and said, "Well, welcome to Wellington!" and everyone just sat there doing NOTHING as I was coming to the realization there was an earthquake. An EARTHQUAKE! Now even though Wellington has around 5 earthquakes a day, they are hardly ever felt. This one particular earthquake lasted around 30 terrifying seconds and reached a 5.7 magnitude. I think I gave away the fact I was the only foreigner in the class when I started looking around like mad, gaping at everyone around me in disbelief when everyone else just continued to sit there and stare into space with no expression on their faces.
When I got back to my flat though, people were a little freaked out. Apparently it was a lot bigger and longer than most are used to. We got several aftershocks after that but they really were barely felt. Saturday I felt no shaking so I figured it was a one time deal and that was that. I started joking to some friends about me not making it back in 1 piece and how these could be my last words....I spoke too soon.
Sunday morning (this morning) I was so rudely shooken awake by yet another earthquake. But this time it was less thrilling and more terrifying. I'm on the very top floor of my very tall apartment complex so the violent shaking which led me under my desk at 5:00am lasted around 45 seconds but the building continued to sway for another 5 minutes. At first I was terrified to feel the skyscaper I'm at the top of dramatically swaying back and forth, but they actually are designed to sway. The swaying prevents the building from crumpling down to earth. There were quite a few aftershocks and I honestly could not tell at times if the shaking was nerves or the earth. Now, New Zealand experiences quite a few earthquakes and everyone seems fine, so I wasn't nervous until the locals started freaking out and saying how bad this was.
Now, today I also went on a Lord of the Rings tour of some of the filming locations around Wellington! (I'll save all that for another blog post). The point being, I felt my first earthquake on ground level in Isengard. It was just Colleen, our tour guide and I so when we heard the rumbling we all just fell silent and then were literally knocked off our feet by the size of this earthquake. The tour guide started running and screaming for us to follow him to the middle of the field away from trees. The shaking was so hard I could not even walk straight. This was a 6.9 magnitude earthquake. To put it in perspective, the devastating Japan earthquake a few years back was a 9.1 magnitude and was the largest one us humans have seen. So this is a big deal.
This happened at the end of the tour, and when I got back to my apartment everything had fallen off the walls and shelves and was shattered on the ground. Also, the building apparently had been evacuated and people were crying and university emergency responders were making everyone feel better with cookies. I ate a loooot of cookies.
As I was writing this, there have been 2 more aftershocks. My flatmates and I all have an emergency bag just in case we have to evacuate so I am prepared and doing all I can. Rumor has it there is a chance these earthquakes are leading up to one huge one, however this is been dubbed very unlikely and hopefully they should stop by tomorrow. There has been some damage including the drywall peeling apart (I didn't know earthquakes could do that!), broken glass everywhere, terrible messes from stuff falling off shelves and walls, oh and a store SUNK INTO THE GROUND (!) 5 centimeters. I must say, even though this is NOT a typical thing to happen in Wellington, it has been quite the experience.
Well, Wellington rocks in more than just one way, ey?
No comments:
Post a Comment