My first thought as the house was shaking around me at 12.02am yesterday was that the earthquake was somewhere close by in Hawke's Bay.
Although it was not a jolting shake - more of a rolling action - it went on for a very long time, almost two minutes bymy estimation. I felt it had to have its epicentre near either Porangahau or Pongaroa, which often are where all the action is with earthquakes. When everything settled, I was surprised to see on www.geonet.org.nz that the 7.5 magnitude earthquake was as far away as Cheviot in the South Island.
It soon became clear that most of the country had felt the shake, even up in Auckland. Certainly many people in Hawke's Bay were jolted awake with many people commenting on our Facebook page. Tragically there was loss of life and damage to property and infrastructure in the South Island. However, it was pleasing to hear that once the tsunami threat warning was given in the Bay, many residents of coastal areas like Haumoana, Ocean Beach and Waimarama simply self-evacuated. It is good in times of danger that people know what to do.
Civil Defence also seemed to have everything under control and managed to get those under threat of a tsunami to safety. However, Hawke's Bay Civil Defence has come in for some criticism that they did not sound the big sirens. The group controller Ian MacDonald's position on this was that what their emergency tsunami model showed meant there was only likely to be a small wave, if any at all.
He said one issue they had to confront was a mass movement of people in the early morning as such situations can create dangers of their own.
