Kiwification

Earthquake broke my mirror

On the evening of Monday 25th Aug 2008 (last night), an earthquake measuring 5.9 hit 10km south of Hastings.

This was the first earthquake I’ve experienced in New Zealand:

I had just stepped outside to put a note in the car for my wife - as I closed the door, and walked through the house, I heard a rumbling / rattling noise. At first, I thought perhaps I hadn’t closed the door properly, or that something had happened to the car…

Then our house started swaying, as if it were a boat, or made of jelly. The shaking lasted for about a minute, and got serious enough that we started wondering whether we should “abandon ship”.

Before we could react further, the shaking subsided, although the house continued to sway for up to a minute. A poorly-secured mirror in our spare bedroom was the only casualty.

I immediately logged onto the GeoNet website, and not finding any information about the quake, reported it. The official quake record is here.

For the record, the famous quake which devastated Napier in 1931 measured 7.8 on the Richter scale.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about how to survive an earthquake in New Zealand. I’m going to put some of those “quake-proofing” ideas into practice within the next few weeks :)

TVNZ reports:

10km south of Hastings

“It was felt across the lower North Island as far away as Wellington.

Hastings residents have reported broken windows and minor damage, and items falling from shelves, while there are a number of fallen trees.

The suburbs of Maraenui and Taradale temporarily lost power.”