While the USA was experiencing a political earthquake, down at the ends of the earth in New Zealand we were experiencing the real thing.
At 12.02am on Monday 14 November, simultaneously two earthquakes of magnitude 7.6–7.8 struck New Zealand. Although the epicentre was in a rural part of the South Island, their impact was felt throughout the country. 150 miles away in Wellington, we were woken by the quakes and immediately aware these weren’t the regular ‘normal’ earthquakes we experience in these ‘Shaky Isles’.
It was some hours before we were able to return to sleep – multiple aftershocks, the evacuation of all low-lying and coastal areas in our city and suburbs and the constant wail of the tsunami warning alarms (think air-raid sirens) till 3am ensured that. A major earthquake certainly gets your adrenaline pumping!
Two lives lost
The impact of the earthquakes was only to become clear in daylight. The entire coastal town of Kaikoura, famous for its whale-watching experiences, was cut off by massive landslips. Sadly, two people lost their lives, but it is a miracle that more didn’t. Like the first Christchurch earthquake of September 2010, that it happened through the night meant many more people weren’t injured or killed.
In the 36 hours since the first quakes, over 1,000 aftershocks have been registered across the country. Each time you feel one, you wonder ‘is this a big one?’ The motion-sickness sensation from the ground repeatedly swaying becomes a familiar feeling. The impact is widely felt – on Monday, our children’s school was closed, we were advised not to go into the city centre (where I work) for fear of falling debris and to allow for engineers to inspect the buildings. Today, a severe storm (wind and rain) has caused flooding and further land-slips. The main arterial road from North to South is severely damaged and may take months to repair. The infrastructure of this country has been severely tested. As I write, there are significant aftershocks happening and there are fears a local eight-storey office block may collapse. For New Zealanders, it’s an all-too-familiar story akin to the experiences in Christchurch just five years ago.
How is God at work?
In the midst of these events, how is God at work? It’s too early to know many details of what’s happening, but already we’ve heard reports of churches assisting those who have been evacuated. To be honest though, Kiwis tend to be pragmatic friendly people, so the churches response mirrors what we see in the communities around us.
The earthquakes have provided us with opportunities to speak of God and his purposes for the world – it’s a helpful distraction away from the media reports of the Evangelical vote in USA. For me, it was more than a coincidence that my ‘Bible in a Year’ reading scheme on 14 November took me to Hebrews 12 and the promise that we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and so we must be thankful and worship God with reverence and awe.
