I was awoken this morning by a very terrifying earthquake that was felt basically throughout the whole of the North Island (The top half of New Zealand) to some extent. We get little tremors here regularly, but this by far, in all of my 4 years living in Wellington, has been the worst one I have ever felt.
I was truly scared for my life, I could see things falling off my shelves and hitting the floor, everything was moving violently from side to side, and I was being tossed around in my bed.
I was so scared, if it had of gone on for any longer I would have had to get under a door-way.
People working in Wellington City said that they could physically see some of the buildings sway from side to side. No one was killed and I haven't heard of anyone being hurt, but there could well be because it was very violent.
Universal Time: January 20 2005 at 18:56
NZ Daylight Time: Friday, January 21 2005 at 7:56 am
Latitude, Longitude: 41.09°S, 175.06°E
Focal Depth: 30 km
Richter Magnitude: 5.5
30km is very deep for an earthquake to be so strong, and 5.5 isn't a very big reading on the richter scale (we have had 6 point's here before) but I think the reason why I felt it so bad, was because it was centered in Upper Hutt, the town that I live, and my house is directly on top of a fault line, so the earthquake was pretty much right beneath us.
It was a very scary way to start the day, that's for sure. And we have had some after shocks but nothing major.