Yesterday, the brother-in-law, the Husband's younger brother, a school principal, left his house to go to work. His lovely wife dropped our two young nephews, aged 7 and 5, off at school and even younger niece at daycare and headed to work in the city. The city of Christchurch.
At lunchtime, as we all know, everything changed. Our five eventually made contact with each other and established everyone was fine. The lovely wife managed to get to the kids while the brother-in-law stayed at his school until the last scared, frightened and often bloodied parent collected their child from his care.
He then set off for home on foot as broken bridges and twisted roads made driving impossible. When he got there, he found that their beautiful home was no more. Gone are children's first drawings, favourite toys, sweet words on cards.
Finally together, the three terrified children and two adults in shock sought shelter at a friend's house, which shook an unbelievable 23 more times throughout the night - once even hitting 5 on the Richter scale.
The family is now on its way to relative safety five hours away at the Husband's and brother-in-law's parents. Many are worse off. Many are still trapped. Many are missing. Many are dead. Our five are alive but hurting.
We can only now hope that the earth stands still and the worst is over. And we do. So very, very much.
Oh dear, its just devastating isn't it. So good that they are all safe but I can't imagine losing my house like that. It must be terrifying for all in Christchurch and hard to look to the road ahead.
ReplyDeletehi Vera
ReplyDeleteits so sad- very happy to hear you know your relatives are okay. My sister has a friend over there whose son is at boarding school in Christchurch- my sister hasnt been able to find out if he is okay yet- Im sure he will be, however it must be traumatic
jane