The New Zealand quake
I was sitting down to lunch when the earthquake struck just before 1pm. Unlike September 4th, there was no gathering, quick-second rumble before the violent shudder; it just erupted as brusque as gunfire. I threw myself into the doorway but the force threw meback out into the room.
The kitchen was a stream of cascading crockery and glasses, piling shin deep. I threw myself back into the doorway at a tug-of-war angle, screaming “NO”, with thoughts of where my wife and child might be.
I think it all lasted for fewer than 10 seconds. It seemed like minutes. I don’t understand how the whole house did not come down. Somehow the mobile network was still up for 15-20 seconds after the quake, and I got through to my wife Belinda. She assured me that she and our four-month-old son, Kealan, were okay – then the network crashed.
Had the quake struck one minute before, their car would probably have been beneath collapsed buildings on Manchester Street. Had Kealan been at home we would have had him on his play-jungle on the floor of his nursery; a huge chest of drawers crashed down on that very space. Aftershocks made the house unsafe.
I checked on a couple of neighbours and headed straight in to town with the hope of finding my family, while photographing what I saw before me: the devastating silence among the deafening clamour of sirens, helicopters, fire engines, ambulances, alarms.
It was 8pm that night before we were reunited. Some people say you make your own luck in life. If so, what about death? What was the difference between the two last Tuesday but luck?
