There we were, tucked up in bed at 10.30ish in that tranquil stage of being almost asleep. Then………shake and rattle, we both sat up and exclaimed, “That’s an earthquake!” Turning the light on we could see the light fitting swinging on it’s chain from the ceiling. Living as we do in a Lockwood house, we felt relatively safe. Lockwood walls are locked together, not nailed together. This locking system, combined with the use of vertical tie rods in the walls, is what gives it the strength to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes all over the world. We don’t get many hurricanes here, but we certainly get plenty of earthquakes. Our house gets quite noisy as it creaks and flexes a little in an earthquake, but that is what it is designed to do.
According to the news, the earthquake was a magnitude 7, and was centred 60 kilometres south west of Opunake on the West Coast of the North Island at a depth of 230 kilometres. The depth probably prevented it causing any damage, and it was widely felt from Bay of Plenty in the north to Canterbury in the south. There was no tsunami warning issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre.
After a check through the house to see that nothing had fallen down, we climbed back to bed and tried to settle down. Not easy, when the mind is racing as we wait to see if there will be a repeat performance. And Muffy failed in the “animals can predict earthquakes” test, she slept soundly on the foot of the bed right through the whole thing!
1 comment:
still following you. On our way home from NZ this spring we had a 2 day layover in San Francisco, there was a ( more than) tremor at about 5.15 an, I thought it was R going to the bathroom.
Hope to be in NZ next year.
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