After the big one

Well, here I am at last, after the earthquake. Because I have no web access at home, I rely on the library's free internet to post, and what with one thing and another I haven't been able to get to my blog.
The earthquake was very frightening. As a permanent resident of The Shaky Isles I have experienced a few earthquakes, but nothing like this. At half past four 2 weeks ago, I was awakened by what I thought was my cats having a fight on my bed. Then it occured to me that this was not so, as one of them was outside. The shaking got stronger; it was like being inside a cardboard box with some malevolent person kicking and punching the outside of it. A windchime that I hang inside over the winter was clanging and donging as things fell around me. I sheltered in the doorway, as per instructions, and felt the doorway itself tilting backwards and forwards, like an unanchored parallelogram. So I moved under the table and said several "hail Mary's", the phrase "now and at the hour of our deaths" gaining a new vividness and immediacy. I did truly think that I was going to die, as the shaking just went on and on.
But it did stop. I found the whisky bottle, and glory be, there were still a couple of drops left. (Let me here recommend a mouthful of whisky for the purposes of pulling oneself together). I went outside; it was a glorious night, the stars full on, I could even see the little fuzzy patch of the Pleiades. "Do they know what's happened down here?" I thought. Irrational thoughts for irrational times.
To cut a long story short, I and my house and cats and mother are fine. No one died, that is the miracle. If you're going to have an earthquake, go for 4.30 on a Saturday morning. Parts of Christchurch have been badly affected. A friend in Kaiapoi has been made homeless by the 'quake, the area was devastated.
But do not listen to those media (particularly American) who claim that the whole city has been levelled, that mass looting took place, violence, civil disobedience, etc, etc. All absolute crap. Of 2000 buildings in the CBD, only 80 are too dangerous to enter. The CBD was cordoned off for public safety, not to prevent looters. Much of the city is still as it was.
What amazed me was the number of men in flourescent vests who suddenly appeared out of nowhere, men who knew how and could do, blokes with hard hats and tool-belts, taking down dangerous chimneys and shoring up walls, balancing on dangerous roofs and parapets. Great God of Testoterone, they've come to save the city!
I think I'll stop now.