In town after quake

After church lunch this morning (which was really good - good food and good fellowship) we had a quick drive through the centre of town before getting our shopping done and heading home. Some roads are closed.

And then buildings with sections having fallen off or with loads of scaffolding - presumably in the process of securing the building so that no more damage is done with the aftershocks.

This church's steeple had been carefully taken off - so many bricks had already fallen.

So many old brick buildings have been damaged. What fascinated us was the fact that it was just a building here and a building there. No set pattern to it at all. The Cathedral is apparently ok but with the aftershocks some plaster falls. So it is closed for now but it sounds like once things have settled it will be open again.

There were a couple of aftershocks while we were in town but none that we felt. A little after we got home at 4pm there was a bigger aftershock though - big enough to make the news with the effect it had in town but still under 5.1 so we did not feel it out here.

The worse effected areas (like some suburbs in town and Kaipoi just outside of town) have been totally closed off to everyone except those who live there. The poor people are feeling quite frustrated with everyone who wants to "come and have a look". So at least we drove through business area and now we did not bother any residents. We did however see a lot of people who were doing the exact same thing as us (many on foot taking photos of the damaged buildings).