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4.36am, Saturday September 4, 2010
The monster comes roaring out of the darkness like a freight train; a terrifying, shaking force that frightens the men, women and children of Christchurch from their beds, screaming out for each other as their world crashes around them. In the suburb of St Albans, mother of three boys Ali Woodhouse is thrown back when she tries to run upstairs to reach her children when her house lurches and rolls. All three boys are screaming, too terrified to move. One by one, Woodhouse coaxes them down the stairs. They slide on their bottoms, step by anxious step, into their mother's arms. The boys, Tim, 12, Corben, 10, and Harry, 8, spend the next 45 minutes cowering underneath their parents' bed, vomiting in fear. When the sun comes up, the aftershocks continue. The frightened boys crawl under a kitchen table shrouded in a blanket.
Police inspector Al Stewart thinks only of his 3-month-old daughter Ella when the earth starts heaving. He races to the nursery, breaking his toe as he smashes his foot on the door frame, and grabs Ella from her cot. Only then does he realise his baby daughter has slept through her first earthquake. Stewart, like most others in Christchurch's emergency services, leaves home for what will be long hours, and days, directing police operations in response to the disaster.
Eleven-year-old Isabella Barnett desperately shakes her sister Lily, 10, awake as the earthquake hits, cutting the power and tossing the girls' bedroom about in the dark. Screaming in terror at the noise, Lily hides under the blankets. Isabella drags her little sister to the doorway and calls for her older sisters Samantha, 15, and Sophie, 17. The girls' parents, Jodie and Simon Barnett - breakfast host on MoreFM - are in Hanmer Springs on their first break away in five years. Woken by the quake and a frightened phone call from their daughters, they dash back to Christchurch.
Single mother Diane Eden cowers in her Bexley home as the earthquake shakes her house, too scared to move. Afterwards she jumps over her back fence and wades through knee-deep silt to get out. Her car is half buried in sand that has exploded through cracks in the ground.
Eighty-two year-old Shirley Duffy is thrown about on her bed as the quake strikes her Dallington house, moving it off its foundations. The conservatory breaks away from the house with an ear shattering noise, her driveway splits into cracks and sand from a newly erupted hole oozes out. She is thrown back on the bed as she seeks protection and sits there screaming, fearing the house will fall on her. Two young relatives arrive to take Shirley to her daughter's house in Avonside. She is too frightened to return home to collect belongings.
Faced with a house without power or water, Shelley McKenzie bundles her three children into the car and heads for the safety of Addington Raceway welfare centre. As each aftershock jolts their world, Ann Marie, 11, Kaleb, 10, and Isaac, 3, become increasingly scared. Aftershocks continue through the day and night.
Sunday September 5
Aftershocks hammer Christchurch. They come all day and during the night, fear and nerves magnified by the darkness. The three Woodhouse brothers cannot sleep. Each time the house shakes 10-year-old Corben scrambles under his bed. "My tummy keeps jumping," he says. Remembering the terror of the previous night, Harry describes the earthquake as "like an ogre was shaking the whole house". The family have dinner cowering under the kitchen table as aftershocks keep coming. The boys nibble food but don't have much appetite.
Diane Eden is staying with a friend at Opawa, too frightened to return home. But her son Jesse MacIlquham, 14, who was staying at his father's Lyttelton home when the earthquake hit, wants to see the house. He is "shocked" at the damage. Eden collects her two cats and leaves.
At the Addington welfare centre, Shelley McKenzie's three children don't want to eat. They are clingy and don't want to go home. They feel safer surrounded by people at the centre as the aftershocks hit. Emergency services work frantically to restore water, power and sewerage systems and check for people who might still be trapped in their homes.
Monday September 6
Frazzled survivors survive on little sleep as cruel aftershocks jolt and shake them awake. Young sisters Lily and Isabella Barnett refuse to go back to their rooms, insisting instead on sleeping in their parents' bed. Aftershocks at night continue to terrify them. Lily clutches a "cuddle buddy" pillow she has nicknamed "Squishy" when each tremor strikes. Templeton youngster Ilea Haugh, 4, won't let her mother out of her sight. Ilea's mother, Karyn, says each aftershock causes her young daughter to scream. "I just take her into my arms and hug her. She's been beside herself." Karyn's elder daughter Serena, 9, has had a "weird tummy" since the quake. " I'm scared to turn the lights off."
Diane Eden's neighbour texts to say the water is back on, but it is gushing through her garage. Eden rushes back to her house to find a water pipe has broken. The Fire Service arrives to dig up the mains and turn off the water. The demolition of unstable buildings and homes across the city begins in earnest.
Tuesday September 7
Christchurch mum Jo Malcolm has had enough. Slamming doors and running footsteps make her jump. Her hands tremble, she struggles to get a sentence together and her brain feels fried. Her husband Roger Sutton, chief executive of the region's electricity company Orion, left home 10 minutes after the quake struck and has barely been home since. Left alone with her three sons George, 10, Harry, 7, and Jimmy, 5, as the aftershocks continued to rumble, Malcolm is desperate to flee. The children are showing signs of stress too. George has bad diarrhoea. Jimmy is stroppy, clingy and demanding. Malcolm decides to take the children and hire a house away from the quake zone. "It's quite the worst thing I've ever experienced," she says.
Diane Eden stands in the sunshine in what was her back yard, now a slick of silt and mud, watching removal men take away her possessions. Eden is not sure what will happen to her home. She doesn't think she will be back.
At Pegasus Health 24-hour medical clinic Dr Dee Mangin is prescribing more sleeping tablets than usual. Mangin, also associate professor at Christchurch Medical School, and her colleagues write up an information sheet on earthquake stress symptoms for patients and parents.
Wednesday September 8
A large aftershock hits at 7.49am as 1-year-old Lucas Miller eats breakfast at his New Brighton home. Afterwards a terrified Lucas refuses to get back in his high chair. Breakfast radio announcer Simon Barnett talks on air to 13-year-old Taylor from Kaiapoi when the aftershock rocks the studio. Radio staff, including co-host Gary McCormack, bolt for cover but Barnett stays, quietly talking to Taylor until the shaking and noise subside. She in turn comforts a little sister screaming in the background.
"I wish there was some way to stop Chch shaking," tweets a worried aunt in Wellington. "My wee niece told me she's only got a wee bit of braveness left..."
Ali Woodhouse takes her sons to spend the night at their grandparents' house at Woodend, 20 minutes north of Christchurch, where the aftershocks have not been so strong. Twelve-year-old Tim sleeps for the first night since the earthquake.
Al Stewart is in Wellington on police work. He's barely seen his baby daughter Ella but says all emergency service workers have put in long hours away from family this week.
Diane Eden has not eaten properly since the quake and the aftershocks keep her awake at night. She has been given a week's paid leave from work but is unsure if she will be ready to go back on Monday.
Susan Jolley, from the Bay of Plenty's Ministry of Social Development, arrives in Christchurch to help coordinate the ministry's counselling response. Working from a makeshift office with no IT facilities, Jolley feels like she has spent a week in Christchurch after only one day.
The Government announces $ 2.4 million for trauma counselling services and $ 7.5m to help community based social services. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa broadcasts a message to Christchurch through MoreFM, saying the earthquake and subsequent damage must be "the most awful thing for you all".
Thursday September 9
Eight-year-old Harry Woodhouse is "crippled with fear" at the thought of returning home to St Albans from his grandparents' house. "The look in his eyes was soul destroying, like, 'How could you do this to me Mum?'" his mother says. Woodhouse decides to take the boys to Wellington - for a trip to the zoo and a more normal life until the aftershocks stop. Husband Blair, who works for a security company, stays behind. Harry is worried about leaving his dad and sends him a message on Facebook. "I told him that if the house breaks he had to go to Nanny's house and when he's ready to leave he has to take the pets with him otherwise they will get sad or killed."
Another big aftershock leaves elderly Shirley Duffy trembling in the arms of her daughter Nicole Appleby. "I just couldn't stop shaking, you can't control it." She decides to leave Christchurch to escape the aftershocks. "I'm going to Auckland, indefinitely. I don't want to stay here."
Melbourne Save the Children child protection specialist Karen Flanagan has to walk to her hotel in a cordoned off area of central Christchurch. She describes the surroundings as a "ghost town". The people Flanagan meets are tense: "People are losing jobs, relationships are under stress, domestic violence is escalating."
The staff of Christchurch's Shirley Boys High School meet to share their experiences of the earthquake. Headmaster John Laurenson's main focus is to make sure his staff are well supported, so they in turn can cope with children who may be traumatised. One of his staff was hospitalised with a suspected heart attack after the quake, many have lost their homes and some are caring for elderly relatives.
Friday September 10
Finance Minister Bill English visits the residents of Diane Eden's street, one of the worst hit. An emotional Eden notices the cracks have worsened in the aftershocks and a trench in the back yard is wider. "The whole place stinks - I can't stand it."
Earthquake Commission surveyors examine Noreen Andrews' home and tell her she was "lucky to get out alive". Neighbours are agitated about what they see as a lack of official response. They want to know why Mayor Bob Parker has not visited.
Lily Barnett, 10, says the aftershocks make her nervous, but she tries not to think about it: "I can eat now but I can't sleep that well now."
It has been a tearful day at Jacqui Miller's New Brighton home with her two children agitated by the aftershocks. "We know it's linked to people feeling tired and not sleeping as well as usual - we're all in the same bed."
Saturday September 11
Exhausted Fire Service members stop work to commemorate their colleagues who died in the World Trade Centre attack at a service in Christchurch.
Children throughout the city prepare to return to school on Monday. Like other school principals, John Laurenson is getting ready to reopen his school. The 1957 prefabs at Shirley Boys High School have survived the quake reasonably well. Water and sewerage systems are now working. Laurenson plans to start Monday with the usual assembly and form meetings for the 1500 students, part of a strategy to face the " the demon of chaos". "Chaos is when things go from predictable to totally unpredictable, that's where fear arises," says Laurenson. "The best way to deal with it is to establish normality."
At New Brighton, 5-year-old Rosa Miller has spent the week mostly indoors where she feels safer. She's been asking her mum, Jacqui Miller, lots of questions: "How many more aftershocks are there going to be, who is doing it?" Now she's faced with returning to Freeville School. Miller is anxious about how school will go; Rosa has become increasingly clingy. "We're a bit worried but we can't keep them home for months," Miller says.
Brittany Cairns, 13, has been sleeping in her mother's bed since the quake. Mother Jude Robinson, who has had Army training and has been under mortar fire, says she's never been as scared as she was on Saturday. "I tell you, it was terrifying."
Now everyone has a grab bag at the end of their bed, packed and ready to go. With school reopening Brittany is nervous, worried about another big quake: "I don't feel safe."
Avonhead school friends Kayley Johnson, 7, and Holly Henderson, 6, are also preparing to return to their school, Avonhead Primary. While they're keen to see their friends, the aftershocks have them worried. "I feel a little bit scared, frightened," says Holly. "It's like the world's closing in on us and pushing us down."
