Christchurch earthquake | scholarship@cc

Paul Holmes has written a letter to Christchurch in response to the recent earthquake. Here’s a little from the NZ Herald site –

Dear Christchurch,

I’m writing to you as an Aucklander, to my Christchurch cousins and brother and sister Kiwis. And I just want you to know how much we’re all thinking of you and how much we love you and how much we feel for you in these impossible days.

Your city is on its knees. Our eyes fill with tears at the sight of it. We watch the TV and listen to the radio all day and we hear your emptiness, your loss, your dismay, your shock, your disbelief. We see that ubiquitous bloody silt from the liquefaction, that weird up-thrust of clag that fills your back yards and covers your roads and buries your cars.

Read the rest here.

A very moving and personal account of the earthquake by Press reporter Vicki Anderson

With no warning the earth roared and shook us ferociously. Like my colleagues in the features department of Christchurch newspaper The Press, I dived under my desk.

I’m a music critic and as we shook and my mind’s eye flashed images of my four children I was pelted with CDs including, ironically, an Underworld album.

The same thing happened to me on September 4, I was even hit by the exact same CD, but this was completely different and a much more visceral and potently deadly quake.

Halfway through the 6.3 quake I wanted to see if my colleagues were OK so stupidly stuck my head out from under my desk only to be hit by a piece of roof. I said “F**k!” at the top of my lungs and it was drowned out by the sound of our building falling down around us.

Across the room from under their desk someone was yelling “yahoo” like it was a fun ride.

I was certain we were all going to die. Things seemed to be happening slowly but quickly at the same time.

I had a fight over something stupid with my partner before I left for work.

Just a few short hours later all I hoped was that I would have the opportunity to see him and hold him again.

Running late, I had given my children a quick peck before leaving. I wondered if it would be my last memory of them.

Read the rest here.