Five years since the earthquake that tore the earth asunder and shook my house almost to pieces.
My poor little home.
Five years on since the famously long and perfectly straight Telegraph Road was left with a dogleg.
Dead set ripped the countryside in two.
Exactly five years yesterday.
It was a Saturday morning.
It was.
So it was today.
No, today is the 5th; it was five years ago on the 4th.
But it was a Saturday.
It was a Saturday morning, five years ago with a leap year in between, which makes it a Friday this year – yesterday.
Was pretty massive though.
It was unbelievable; in fact I recall being thrown awake that morning and not believing it – thinking I was in the grips of a nightmare.
Wow, yeah, then you peed yourself.
Yeah, but only a little bit – I was busting for a leak but the room wouldn’t stop shaking, then when it finally did and I started making my way tentatively into the hall, it started again, threw me into the wall and yeah, I admit, a bit of pee came out.
That’s funny, the earthquake made you pee yourself.
Yeah alright, what wasn’t so funny though was just after that, having to step across the bathroom floor in bare feet and in absolute darkness, only to find the bathroom mirror had shattered on the floor, rendering my tender winter feet a bloody mess.
Heh, heh, bloody mess.
Yeah, so the dribble of urine was really nothing compared to the little spots of blood I left all over the carpet.
Wow, should’ve turned on the light.
Are you serious? The whole region was without power for days, man – substations throughout Mid-Canterbury sustained major damage.
Oh, so what’d you do for breakfast?
I barbecued.
Really – can you barbecue in winter?
No choice, once I’d dug out the barbecue from the mess in my garage I spent all day out there, cooking meats and other perishables, heating coffee – watching the house windows flex and bow with the frequent aftershocks.
So it was a good day then..?
It was tolerable, then came the night.
What happened in the night?
The tremors continued, another frost covered the land, there was no heat, no light – it was awful.
So what’d ya do?
I went to bed.
Was that better?
Not really, because aftershocks were coming what felt like every few minutes and it soon became such that I was trembling so much I could no longer even distinguish the earth tremors from my own.
Wow … You peed yourself.
Yeah.
Article by Tim Walker
Edited by Bro Ken House
Photography by Ura N Drabble