That Earthquake!

I was comfortably asleep when, a couple of minutes after midnight Sunday, the night of November the 13th, a 7.5 quake hit the South island. At that magnitude it didn’t stay there but extended all the way up to us where my home rock and rolled for about 2 minutes. Ten minutes later my neighbour arrived hammering on my window to see if I was okay. I was. The geese are still stalking about the lawn with the air of those that have been discombobulated and don’t appreciate it. Thunder is clingy, no cat likes his home bouncing like that, and my big water tank may be damaged. We stood chatting in my kitchen briefly, then she went home and I went back to bed.
I got up around half past 6am, fed everything including me, and logged on to my email to find a dozen friends all asking if I was still in one piece. I am. Apart from the water tank which may be cracked around the top, I’m fine and so is everything else here. I’m not even that bothered. It isn’t as if there’s never been a quake here, and while 7.5 is rather more than usual, the lack of any real damage means I’m not as upset as I could have been.
With that intensity the quake could have been far far worse, the last (lower level) quake in that approximate area killed over 200 people and did far more real damage, so all in all I think the country got off lightly. Of course, we all thought that in the first Christchurch quake – which was then followed by the seond that was so bad. Now I’m hoping we don’t have the same pattern. I’d rather sit at my computer thanking fortune that almost everybody/thing survived, then have a second quake roll up and devastate the place. But then, things can always be worse, and right now I’m simply grateful they weren’t and hopeful that won’t change.