The Week That Was at Coal Mine Cottage: 6.3 Magnitude Earthquake Wrecks lovely Christchurch City

Map of Pacific Ring of Fire where 90% of the Worlds earthquakes occur!

Thanks to all who have contacted us this week from overseas. We are the lucky ones, relatively safely tucked up here in the North of New Zealand where our natural enemy is not so much earthquakes but volcanic eruption! (Auckland lies on a ring of 50 dormant volcano cones and craters!! The last big bang in Auckland was just 600 years ago! ) New Zealand has long been known as the 'Shaky Isles' because of its position on the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Map of Auckland city and suburbs and the 50 Volcanic cones

Auckland City

Rangitoto in distance, erupted 600 years ago.

Tuesday was a really horrid day for New Zealand. Pip and I woke up without a care, popped down the road for an early morning swim at Kohi beach, had a quick SUP (Stand Up Paddleboard) thanks to new friend Christine and then met an old school friend who had a rescue dog we wanted to sweep up and take home with us!

Sadly our car keys (avec car alarm pad) had come swimming with us so poor Pip had to pop into another car and drive the 2.5 hours north to Whangarei to collect our spare set!! Whoops! Later I managed to mislay my cellphone in the middle of busy Khyber Pass (luckily a courier found it and is posting it back to me!).

While all this was going on a second big quake hit Christchurch and changed the face of that city forever. Made our stuff ups of the day look pretty inconsequential. Take a look at this link to see the Fault lines running throughout our country. The fault line that caused the quake is not showing on the link and has been hidden for 16,000 years!

graph and map of Feb earthquake in Christchurch

Graph and map of September 4th Earthquake

Graph of earthquake forces in
September, Map of Quakes;Scene in CBD; Survivors.

Along with most of NZ we were numb with sadness and shock as the full magnitude of the devastation and loss of life unfolded in the media. Everyone who has ever been to Christchurch knows what a lovely old English styled city it is, old stone buildings clustered around Hagley Park and the Historic centre of town. Its hard to believe the iconic Cathedral with its lovely spire has been ruined and so many buildings destroyed. Worse still is the toll of innocent people who have lost their lives simply going about their daily business.

Sadly people were trapped in buses;Liquifaction swirls through the city swallowing cars and property;The broken Cathedral;Rescue Teams muster.

I have felt quite stupid ploughing on with our home renovation as if its important, when people where dying under the rubble of Christchurch's buildings just a couple of hours south by plane. But plough on we did. What else can you do? You just have to go on doing what you do I guess. Life has to keep on going forward. In such a small country everyone is affected. The Government has callled a National state of Emergency to deal with the distruction of a whole city. We've had the telly on TV One all week keeping up with the rescues efforts but sadly no-one has been found alive since Wednesday and there are still over 200 people missing.