And then at midnight, the Earthquake struck.
At 12.02 AM on 14 November, the children were reading books while my wife was in the toilet. The whole place just started shaking and it didn't stop. It kept going and going and the lamps were shaking too. My kids were wondering what was happening so I just explained to them what this was. After a minute or so, it finally stopped. It was quite shocking as I had not experienced a quake that lasted this long.
We realized we had experienced the 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake, a 7.8 Magnitude quake. Googling 'Quake NZ' gave us more info on what happened. An earthquake hit Hanmer Springs, about 130km away. The news that trickled in gave us more insight on the scale.
The first thing we did was to message our folks in Singapore that all was well. I think they too didn't truly understand the scale of it either until the reports in the global newspapers the next day.
It affected Kaikoura and Wellington in particular. There were a ton of tweets by folks in Wellington on the impact in their houses. Only in the morning, we heard that the road to Kaikoura was completely blocked by the landslides. Even the wharf infrastructure of the Interislander Ferry shuttling between Picton and Wellington was impacted. Interestingly, we heard Hanmer Springs was practically unscathed given its proximity to the epicentre.
There were quite a few aftershocks that occurred during the night some varying between 10 to 20 seconds. Checking Geonet for information on quakes was quite a useful tool at that point in checking the magnitude of each vibration.
And in the morning, we realized that we would likely need change our road trip plans to Kaikoura when we were intending to visit on 16 Dec. I foolishly hung on to the hope that in one month's time, the roads would be cleared up and our plans could go on as normal. Later on in the month, we heard this was no longer an option as State Highway 1 (SH1) would remain closed.
At 12.02 AM on 14 November, the children were reading books while my wife was in the toilet. The whole place just started shaking and it didn't stop. It kept going and going and the lamps were shaking too. My kids were wondering what was happening so I just explained to them what this was. After a minute or so, it finally stopped. It was quite shocking as I had not experienced a quake that lasted this long.
We realized we had experienced the 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake, a 7.8 Magnitude quake. Googling 'Quake NZ' gave us more info on what happened. An earthquake hit Hanmer Springs, about 130km away. The news that trickled in gave us more insight on the scale.
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| Roadsigns with the added 'Picton Detour' |
The first thing we did was to message our folks in Singapore that all was well. I think they too didn't truly understand the scale of it either until the reports in the global newspapers the next day.
It affected Kaikoura and Wellington in particular. There were a ton of tweets by folks in Wellington on the impact in their houses. Only in the morning, we heard that the road to Kaikoura was completely blocked by the landslides. Even the wharf infrastructure of the Interislander Ferry shuttling between Picton and Wellington was impacted. Interestingly, we heard Hanmer Springs was practically unscathed given its proximity to the epicentre.
There were quite a few aftershocks that occurred during the night some varying between 10 to 20 seconds. Checking Geonet for information on quakes was quite a useful tool at that point in checking the magnitude of each vibration.
And in the morning, we realized that we would likely need change our road trip plans to Kaikoura when we were intending to visit on 16 Dec. I foolishly hung on to the hope that in one month's time, the roads would be cleared up and our plans could go on as normal. Later on in the month, we heard this was no longer an option as State Highway 1 (SH1) would remain closed.
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| A check on NZTA website on 18 Nov 2016 showed SH1 being inaccessible |
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