A FORMER Huddersfield man has revealed the terrifying nightmare of living constantly with earthquakes.
John Costello lives and works in Christchurch, New Zealand – a city hit by an astonishing 7,735 quakes and aftershocks in the past 15 months.
The worst was in February and left a city devastated by a quake that killed 182 people and destroyed much of the central area.
Since then, many have been major aftershocks and the latest came just as Mr Costello and his colleagues were packing up for Christmas and again brought fear to the area.
Mr Costello, formerly of Clayton West, lives with his wife Erika 20km north of Christchurch.
He was at work when the latest round of dreadful quakes hit.
“They have come out of the blue. We had all become a little complacent as, over the last few weeks, we knew there had been aftershocks but they had all been so small they could not be felt.
“We certainly received a wake up call this afternoon. It was our last day at work prior to the Christmas holidays and, like all other businesses in New Zealand, we were having a Christmas dinner, a few drinks and receiving presents.
“At 1.58pm we were literally shaken by a 5.8 magnitude quake which went on for 20 seconds. We were having the party in the stores area, I was outside at the time so I was not too concerned but those inside were really frightened when the racking started to sway quite violently. Fortunately nothing came down and we continued with the party which was drawing to a close anyway.
“We all agreed it was a big one. It turned out to be the sixth largest since the start back in September 2010.
“Whilst driving home you could see people out on the streets, some crying, some sitting down, some comforting others.
“I called in at Canterbury Cheesemongers, run by Martin (from Barnsley) and his Kiwi wife, Sarah. They and their staff were shaken and had decided to close the shop on what should have been their second busiest day of the year. It turned out that most other businesses had done the same, all the malls had been evacuated and all demolition work in the red zone had ceased.
