Fourteen years ago on the 4th September 2010, Canterbury, NZ, was struck with was what to be the first of several earthquakes over the next year and a bit. The most destructive of these was on 22nd February 2011, but that was still a few months away.
At the time of the September earthquake, I was living in Westport with my sister, and we felt that earthquake there, too, although to a lesser extent than it shook Canterbury, of course. Our parents and another sister were living in Christchurch at the time, and I wrote up the hair-raising story she told me about the few hours after the earthquake struck. That story was published in the Westport News, which was still only a printed newspaper then.
I kept a copy of that story I submitted to the Westport News, and this evening, on the anniversary of that earthquake, here it is. I can still hear my sister’s voice as she told it to me –
A B'Old Woman 
It seems so long ago I don’t even twig that on the 4th September that it’s the anniversary. Thank goodness we didn’t have a tsunami to contend with too. I’m glad you took your animals with you.
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I only remembered because of something on FB – lol! This was my sister’s story, and there’d be no way in hell she’d leave her animals behind. I’m not sure what she’d do now, as she does cat rescue and rehoming, and has about 30 cats on her property at any one time. However, she and her husband live on a lifestyle block now, so maybe they’d be better off there than they were when the Sept 4th earthquake, and the subsequent ones, struck.
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