I was on the 5th floor of the hotel and thought I was dreaming…had only been in bed one hour after a long journey from South Africa…was so tired and am convinced that I slept through quite a bit of that first minute.
I was in my room for quite a while trying to figure out what was going on…turned on my laptop for some light, carried it around to see if anything was in my room as it had sounded like something was running around the place.
Nothing in the room was broken or dislodged, not even the bottle of wine and two glasses perched on the mantlepiece!
If I had known about the cracks and rubble further up the building I would not have gone back when staff said we could do so at our own risk…I only left the room again when another aftershock came.
I am happy to be back home further south now and that no friends and family have been hurt – my thoughts are with those that are still in the Canterbury area.

Thank you for telling us of your experience. I just moved from Christchurch to Canada (swapping earthquakes for tornados!) but my daughter lives in the worst affected part of Chch, as well as a son living in a less affected part of town. The last 24 hours I have been fighting the urge to hop on a flight ‘home’ to my kids. The photos are just mind blowing. A bigger impact was seeing a video on youtube only minutes after the quake coupled with the sound. Adding the sounds of people shouting, crying, sirens blaring…..you could practically feel the cold air and smell the brick dust. Needless-to-say, I have been txting and calling my friends in Chch and have been constantly on the internet. Facebook has been a terrific source of information and photos. There has been some speculation that another 7+R might strike in the next few days. Lets pray that they are wrong.
My thoughts and prayers are with all the whanau.

I visited family there in January 2009, such a lovely place to have all this damage, my family are, thankfully safe but shocked by it all, I note that things are being dealt with quickly when you have to bear in mind the continuing after shocks, those dealing with everything need a very big thankyou, I doubt if something similar happened in this country it would be dealt with so efficiently. UK. I hope you all come through this well and dont have any more quakes of that strength in the future. Best wishes to you all.