Standing on not so solid ground in Christchurch, New Zealand

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

There are certain assumptions that one operates under, and one of those is that the earth will not move; that the ground beneath ones feet will be solid.

Tuesday morning, February 22, I sat down and wrote a bit about the sudden change in scenery, moving from Antarctica to New Zealand. Before heading out to the U.S. Antarctic program headquarters (the CDC) to use the internet and post these thoughts, I met a few friends for breakfast at the Coffee House, and stopped by my favorite cheese shop who had only just reopened in a new location after their old shop was demolished in the earthquake in September. I took a bus out the CDC, and moments later, the city was struck by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. I was lucky to be in a strong, low building, and in a room where there wasn't much to fall. It probably only lasted about 30 seconds, but they might very well have been some of the scariest 30 seconds for people here. When the earth stopped moving, I ran outside to find a small group of friends and coworkers from the ice. After shocks continued to rattle both the earth and our nerves. The most unsettling perhaps, was the sound that preceded each tremor- a low rumbling from deep in the earth, the sound of stone cracking according to some locals.

For those of us away from the city center, it was only as we heard radio transmissions, and could see pictures posted on the internet, that we began to realize just how bad it was. The news of course is now littered with photos of collapsed buildings and bloody faces, and the search continues for both bodies and survivors.

We are the lucky ones. There were nearly 600 people who had left Antarctica and flown into Christchurch in the last week, and the staff here, along with some dedicated facebookers, have worked at tracking down every one of them. For those of us still in the area, we are fortunate to have a place to sleep, and we are well fed, and in good company. We even have internet and phone access, along with power and water, a luxury that most of the city is lacking.