I don't come here often enough to warrant creating a thread to say cheers, so I'll just do it here where (hopefully) my friends will see it.
Kaikoura (on our South Island) got hit by a 7.8 quake on Monday. There's still uncertainty on whether the quake we felt here in Welly (south tip of the North Island) is the same quake or just another big one that followed onto that. Either way, it hit just past midnight and just as I was about to get ready for bed. The whole house swayed, physically actually swayed, which is awesome y'know, considering I was alone at home with 4 small children fast asleep.
There's some structural damage to the house but nothing else is broken (except maybe our nerves). Had a rough few nights, lots of nightmares that have caused some screaming and yelling in the dead of night (I think we've all had a turn with that now).
So...according to our seismologists, the chance of another big one hitting within the next 30 days has gone up from 15% to 30%. Welly is on a major fault line. They've been talking about 'The Big One' for nearly 10 years now, and that's not for any part of NZ except for Wellington. Yay, whohoo, go us. I'm just going on experience here, but when the big quake hit Christchurch a few years ago, there was some damage but no loss of life - until a second, lower in magnitude, quake hit again a week later, in which many people died.
To top it off, we've had heavy rainfall, lots of flooding and landslides (and even a tornado last night!) since Tuesday, and there's more predicted for tonight (already heard the thunder growling outside).
There's not a lot of milk in the stores due to the earthquake destroying the supplies, and there wasn't any bread either. Kinda sucks when you've run out.
Anyway. I'm running around getting our get away kits and survival kits together now. Won't be on the forum for a long time. If anyone needs to reach me, I'm still active on FB and Skype.
Also, sorry to anyone I haven't replied to on the forums. A bit distracted and busy with all this natural disaster stuff.