On the 4th of September 2010, I woke up and heard a very loud windy noise, then I heard Dad in my doorway calling my name.

Then I realised the house was shaking, it was fun, it felt like a rollercoaster that you couldn’t control. When it stopped Dad and I went to Mum and Dad’s bedroom and my brother Sam and I got into their bed and sat there getting dressed. Then we jumped into the car and drove to Gran and Pop’s. We thought there might be a tsunami because we live in Spencerville near the sea. We ate muffins in the dark at Gran and Pop’s place, they were very yummy. An hour later the power came on, then 5 hours later the water came back on. We got lots of cracks in our house, and our house will have to be rebuilt.

On the 22nd of February, I was in the bag bay at school and suddenly I was flung against a pole. I could hear kids screaming. The ground was shaking beneath my feet for a shorter time than the September earthquake. I went and lined up on the field with everyone else, then we sat down with our bags and sang songs while we waited till our parents came. A lot of the younger kids were crying. My aunty and uncle came and picked us up, and then we went to Gran and Pop’s place again. We stayed there for nearly a week because our house had no power or water.

There were yucky pictures on the TV of people coming out of buildings with blood on their faces, it made me feel shocked. I think everyone was shocked.

When we went home, we had liquefaction all down our street and deep holes in the road. We had a hole in our lawn and a big lump beside it. Later there was a wasp nest living in it. There was a hole in the footpath, you could see under the lawn all the grass roots hanging down into the hole with no soil around them. It looked funny.