I guess i have nothing to add here that hasn't already been said but it's so glad to learn that all our NZ'ers are fine and that no one has been killed as a cause of this.

We don't really have this to worry about here. Infact the only earthquake i have ever felt was in the last couple of years and it was a very, very, weak tremor. Nothing more. At the time the foundations of my house had been shaking mildly due to a dodgy water main under the house that would shake whenever a heavy vehicle such as a bus or a truck would pass over it and so i was used to this. When we had the tremor, i realised it was much more violent than usual but actually assumed this was all that happened until i couldn't sleep and put the news on. That was seriously how irrelevant the whole thing was and so i can't even comprehend something like this, personally.

Vanilla's account of it is really scary. It's actually a little heartbreaking to read.

Just wanted to say hope everything's restoring back to normalcy. I see how people behave crazed over a 5.1 or so earthquake here, so a 7.4 would be catastrophic to say the least. So, I hope everyone's fine where you are.

Sorry if I missed this science class but they can predict them???

I know one lot who definitely don't want that prediction to come true. They've already got one of their biggest rapings coming, and they're not in the mood for another, it's the insurance companies!

When I saw this on the news, I was also hoping you were all okay! I was shocked to see how many earthquakes New Zealand gets...thousands per year, apparently, but "only" 200 or so of them strong enough to be felt. That's a lot of earthquakes!

One time in high school, I heard rumbling and vibrations and thought it was an earthquake and was all set to jump out the 2nd story window. Turned out to be just a janitor pushing a cart on the roof. I remember adrenalin shooting through me from just that false alarm, so your very real experiences must have been very scary.

Oh lawd, they gonna be so raped.
:D

I can't say that I'd ever need earthquake insurance, but I sure could use some Hurricane insurance.
Anyway, it's definitely good to hear none of our NZ folks were injured during the making of this tectonic fiasco. To be honest, I didn't even know they had earthquakes there.

/ignorance

Since NZ has no real poisonous animals, isn't near tropical equators causing monsoons and twisters, and doesn't house any mafia or major heroine distributors, God thought it was only fair to sit us right on some tectonic plate fault lines.

We got scousers. :(

Manchester drew the short straw. ;)

And he gave us pinapple lumps :laughing:

I am feeling majorly anxious right now, we had an aftershock at 8am of 5.1 but it was 6km deep and 5km away. We've been told the aftershocks could go for months and I think University is shut for a bit because of the major damage. Can I come stay with one of you guys?! :D