Earthquake!!

New Zealand lies right over a rather large fault line. This fault line cuts pretty much from top to bottom of the country and sometimes results in earthquakes. Earthquakes are a common life experience here. In my time here in New Zealand, I haven't been able to really experience one until the other night.

Now to be fair, I slept through a very small one while in Wellington and another time was in the car driving when one occurred too. Unless the earthquake is large on the rictor scale, you won't feel a thing if you are driving around. So now I am happy to report that I have felt my first earthquake.

We were at Jon's parents house where we had gone to visit, have dinner and chat for a while after church last Sunday. I had tried earlier to contact my mother to see how she had done with the Hurricane. We were in the living room talking, Jon and I about ready to leave for home when it happened.... The whole house shook - not massively though. It was a moderate earthquake. It did no damage to their house or the city and didn't shake anything off the walls. However, it did shake the house.

Never being in one before, it is just another reminder how amazing and powerful Mother Nature is. We are getting many reminders of this lately. Anyway, for those of you who are curious, the earthquake was about a 5.2. It happened on Sunday, Sept 14 2008 at apx. 9.25pm. It originated about 60 km southwest of Wanganui out in the ocean floor. We felt it around 9.30ish here in New Plymouth.

It was rather exciting for me, but I will admit that I do not think I would find a large scale earthquake all that exciting. That would be scary. (I am happy to report that it did not even scare me. Really I think I was just amazed and excited to know right away what it was.)