Troubled bridge over water!Christchurch earthquake

This morning at about 4 35am there was a force 7.1 earthquake centred about 30kms from downtown Christchurch. There have been many aftershocks since.

It was very scary and seemed to go on and on with a loud roaring noise and the house shaking. Cupboards fell over and emptied themselves on the floor, ornaments and pictures crashed.

When down came we began to see the extent of the damage - this is our little local footbridge that we rode over every day - it will be a long time before we do that again, if ever. Roads are cracked, power poles and lines down, big holes in roads and verges, trees down and houses cracked with broken chimneys.

So far no one has died which is amazing. We still don't have water 12 hours later and we had no power for 10 hours but everyone looked out for their neighbours.

Luckily it was a lovely sunny day.