Christchurch’s devastating 6.3 earthquake, 12.51pm, 22 F eb 2011

My friends and I were sitting at our desks watching the ending song in Grease, then Mr George came into our classroom before he went to the staffroom to have his lunch. As soon as he left the classroom started shaking. I sat at my desk for a while thinking it was going to stop within 5 seconds, then I realised “Oh my gosh…this isn’t just another aftershock…it’s another big earthquake!”. so I quickly went under the desk. My friend who was sitting next to me quickly followed. I held onto my friend and we were screaming!

It seemed to last for 1 minute, but it was really 20 seconds! When it finally finished my friend and I came out from under the desk. People in my class were crying and some were even excited or ‘stirred-up’. People were coming into the class saying “WOW…that was big!”. Mr George came in again to check if we were okay, then followed by our teacher Mrs Sinclair. My friend quickly rung her Mum to see if she was okay. But no answer. Then I tried but couldn’t get through because the phones were overloaded due to everyone ringing family and friends. Over the speaker was Mr Guthrie’s voice saying “Everyone please meet outside by the hall and we will go from there”. We all went outside, then another aftershock hit. Everyone ducked down including me. Children’s parents were already rushing to the school to get their children. I wasn’t sure whether my Mum was at home or not. I saw my sister and she was crying, which made me a bit teary too. I sat with all my friends and we all waited for one of our parents to come pick us up. My Mum finally came to pick me up at about 1:45pm (Just under an hour after the earthquake). Driving back home in the car we saw all the liquefaction around my area. We also lost power, but only for 1 hour. Fortunately we still had water and sewage this time. Once the power turned back on we had family calling us and we were calling them. We also immediately turned on the television as we knew that it would be breaking news and they would have interrupted normal programming. My family and I all watched the news on T.V. We saw all the devastation – especially in the city, as well as all the deaths. My Mum started crying too. Throughout that day we had many aftershocks, Dad made us pack our bags just in case we had to quickly leave. It was a very sad day for all of New Zealand. I think Christchurch won’t be the same without all our nice historic buildings, but it is also a time for change and new beginnings. We can build a better Christchurch!!