‘The Big Shakes!’-Sam, 8, Emmanuel Christian School
On September 4th 2010 I woke up and the house was shaking. It was awesome!
Mum came in to my room and jumped on me – I thought it was strange.
When the earthquake stopped I said ‘I was having such a nice sleep!’, then we packed some stuff and went in the car with Mum and Dad and my sister Ashley and our dog Monty. It took an awfully long time to pack the car, the tsunami would already have happened. It felt exciting!
On February 22nd 2011 I was at school playing soccer. Suddenly I felt shaking, I stopped playing soccer and just stood there. Then me and my friends spotted a crack in the ground and liquefaction started squirting up out of it. It made a big puddle of silt. Suddenly a whole lot more cracks appeared and more liquefaction squirted out of them. I felt confused and excited. Then we had to go into our classrooms and the teachers realised we’d be safer on the field so all the school waited on the field until our parents came and picked us up. Aunty Jackie and Uncle Grant came and picked us up and took us to our grandparents house and had lamingtons.
I didn’t feel scared because I just thought it was a normal big aftershock.