The Big Shake

[KelvinAng]

7.4 on the scale, 30km west of Christchurch, 10km south east of Darfield. 4.35am. Friend in ChCh city central has his power cut. Out here in Amberley it's shakey but we've still got power. Did you feel it where you are, and if you did, how severe was it?

[RussellNJ]

Hope everyone is ok. Initial reports on the news media here in the US in this first hour are sketchy, but it sounds like a decent amount of damage to buildings and homes.

[Duncan74]

Well didn't get woken by it in Tauranga, but you'd hardly expect that I would have.

7.4 is pretty big.....

[Duncan74]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4094...s-South-Island

More details. Isn't sounding good.

[diogenese]

It woke me up in Temuka, a few bits and bobs fell off shelves and the aftershocks are still occurring over an hour later.
I hope these are not common at this magnitude, I'm having enough trouble sleeping as it is!

[SueDonim]

Wow. 7.4 is a real one. And lasting a minute! Biggest I've felt was a 5.3 from about 40 miles away.

I hope all in the area are ok. Prayers for you all.

[SueDonim]

Here's some technical info
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...0atbj.php#maps

Not to be insensitive, but I would assume homes and buildings constructed in the past 50 years or so are built to earthquake standards, are they not? Hope so

[SueDonim]

And more from the same site
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...=New%20Zealand

[DrLaw]

Just chiming in from the US hoping that everyone is ok in the Christchurch vicinity.

[lizzyplop]

We live in Rolleston which is 22km south west of Christchurch and i'm quite sure close to the centre of it all! The house was shaking like you wouldn't believe and to say we were terrified is an understatement. Still getting some decent tremors but no problems with the house as we can see...yet! And there goes another nice tremor.....this is not nice!