I woke to the sound of one thousand trains and crashing through the house, but then I realized it wasn’t one thousand trains it was the horrifying sound of an earthquake!

It was September the 4th 2010 at 4:35 in the morning when the big earthquake hit Christchurch.

On the day of the earthquake I was at a slumber party at my friend’s house. Olivia, ParRish and Erica and I were celebrating Olivia’s 11th birthday, we had played lots of games but we decided to go to bed.

Then, that’s when the big earthquake struck, I woke to the sound of one thousand trains, crashing and banging through the house, but then I noticed something, it wasn’t one thousand trains it was an earthquake!

The earthquake was still happening my heart was racing it was pitch black, I couldn’t see a thing, Olivia tried getting up to turn on the light but it was to shaky for her, so she ran back to the bed and started to hug me to death! But as soon as she did that her mother walked in calmly, turned on the light for Olivia and said in a soft calm voice, “Is everyone okay?” And thankfully everyone was fine.

Then we heard another sound but it wasn’t the shaking, it was the phones ringing, and guess who it was, our Mums, they were all asking if they were alright and we were all alright.

Later on that morning we had breakfast and started watching the news about what happened. There were lots of pictures of the damage that the earthquake caused, lots of houses cracked and lots of liquefaction, I had no idea it was that bad!

The earthquake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale the same as the earthquake in Haiti, but the earthquake in Haiti had much more damage and more people died, but with Christchurch no one died, there was also less damage than Haiti.

Later on in the afternoon, Olivia’s mum went to the supermarket to buy some food for us so we could eat lunch, but when she came back, she came back empty handed. The supermarket had closed because of the earthquake, so we had to stick with what they had.

When I got home, I shouted to my dad “HAPPY FATHERS DAY!” And he was very happy. My family and I started watching a lot of news, and they are calling it the Canterbury quake. I haven’t watched that much news lately, but it’s nice to know what’s happening in the world.

So it wasn’t exactly the sleepover I was hoping for, but at the same time it was a blast! And hopefully I won’t have to experience another big earthquake like that ever again.