There's a very subdued feeling here tonight. Home by 10pm from a party with a group of folks well known for partying hard into the wee small hours. But not tonight.
Ken Ring's predictions for an earthquake to strike the South Island tomorrow are looming larger than the full moon. With the moon closer to the earth than it has been for 18 years Ken Ring (known in these parts for predicting the weather by the moon) believes that increased solar activity may result in increased seismic activity:
this article was written BEFORE the Christchurch earthquake of Feb 22nd.
Feb 22nd, explaining the planets and earthquakes
and...
the article that has many New Zealanders very worried about what may happen tomorrow.
This must be the only party I have been to in which people arrived with their cars fully packed with emergency kits (food, water, tents, gas etc) especially as it was held at a friends house on a hill, safe from tsunami. Others are camping on hills tonight and for the next few nights for fear of a tsunami sweeping through our coastal region. There was a lot of fear and anxiety, people taking rescue remedy instead of drinking wine, worrying about friends, family and pets.
I'm not too worried. We have no particular emergency set-up other than what we require for day to day living out here in the country - gas bottles and firewood, a good store of food, water, bleach for water purification, candles, fuel in vehicles, batteries for the radio, a large vegetable garden, a hill behind the house to escape a tsunami. What will be will be. At times like this I appreciate even more that I live in the country and have always had large amounts of supplies to hand, something taught to me by my parents and grandparents.
Watching tonights geonet feeds there does seem to be an increase in activity and there is an odd stillness in the night air, often felt prior to an earthquake.
So all we can do is carry on as normal, get a good nights sleep and see what tomorrow brings (I might skip my beach walk though). My gut feeling? - that we are not through the worst of it yet, there will be more to come.
Julia x
Apologies for blurry moon photo taken off the verandah tonight without a tripod.
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