By now most people in the world would've heard about the cruel destruction of the Garden City Christchurch in New Zealand by the deadly quake on Tuesday 22 February.

Following is an account of my actions and thoughts in that harrowing afternoon four days ago. Please be aware it is long, personal and emotional. Read it ONLY if you want to.
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It was a lazy Tuesday. Having worked on Sunday and submitted the job with very tight deadline on Monday, I was trying to relax as well as catching up with editing and uploading some pictures to my photo albums. Having uploaded a lot, I closed the image viewer program, went off to the kitchen to fix some tea and toast for lunch, came back to the lounge/home office and opened Opera to check news.

As expected, there wasn't much happening in my neck of woods. I finished my lunch and finishing my cup of tea when the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand Te Ara tweeted,
'Another earthquake has hit Christchurch… waiting for more information #eqnz'

Oh, another "massive" aftershock that turned out only big enough to break some shop windows, was my first thought. But then Geonet NZ tweeted,
'Quake: mag 6.3, Tue, Feb 22 2011 12:51 pm (NZDT), http://geonet.org.nz/3468575g 10 km south-east of Christchurch'

Magnitude 6.3 is bigger than most of the aftershocks since the 7.1 in September, but still less than a 1/10 of the big one in terms of energy released. Shouldn't be that bad, though the close distance to the city is worrying, I thought. I tried to get to the Geonet page but had to wait some time before the server returned the updated page content. The map showed the epicentre under the port hill right behind the port town of Lyttleton, and the depth of only 5km!

I felt a knot in my stomach. I grew up in Japan. I know how deadly a relatively small quake can be if shallow and right under a city. Still 6.3 was not as big as the 6.8 of the Great Hanshin Awaji Quake Disaster of 1996 that destroyed the city of Kobe and killed nearly 6500 people

By the time I came back from Geonet site, Twitter had several more tweets from the media, though the reports linked were still sketchy other than this quake was indeed "massive". The scale of devastation did not hit me until I saw kiwi photographer Rob Suisted tweet, 'TV3 coverage on TV now of quake. Stunned people. Terrible #eqnz' and turned the TV on.

The images on TV for a minute or so after coming on did not look so bad. People are alive, walking, not many had blood on, some piles of rubbles by the street. Then the TV showed the scene of a man with a leg injury being interviewed, disrupted by the screams and shouts in background. The camera panned, and showed the crumbling spire of the ChristChurch Cathedral, the icon and symbol of the City of Christchurch. My head went empty.

I followed the coverage for some time, but was unable to process what I was seeing. Graphic images of a collapsed building, a group of people on a big pile of rubble presumably trying to rescue someone trapped. More similar images at different location. I could hear the voices of field reporters and the news reader in the studio both shaking and breaking. My hands were cold. A lump in my throat and a big tight knot in my stomach. My eyes were hot.

I don't know how long I was like that. I finally took my eyes off TV and my attention back to the Web. I had subscribed the Civil Defence tweet for some time, and they were now issuing periodical updates of the situation. The "unofficial" NZ Police tweets also delivered news of their update. There were some discrepancies between the media coverage and CD or Police information.

Then I belatedly realised the quake related tweets all bore the #eqnz hashtag. The tweets coming in with #eqnz were truly chaotic. Again some tweets seemed wrong (Chch Hospital is closed! Not true!!) or outdated, without citing the source of information. Without thinking much, I tweeted the info I saw on NZ police website about the triage centres with the #eqnz hashtag. I knew I don't have many followers on Twitter. But still, even if only one person spotted my tweet and passed on, it might help someone.

I kept monitoring updates on the Civil Defence, NZ Police, and later the Canterbury Earthquake website by the Environment Canterbury, and kept tweeting or retweeting what I thought the most important info, such as locations of the triage centres and welfare centres and transport status. I saw one of a known kiwi web critic tweeted to warn inaccuracy of some of the tweets, and someone else replied to use the #src hastag when the source of information is confirmed. I started adding #src to my tweets and was encouraged seeing it RTed or MTed.

Meanwhile the TV screen kept delivering the horrific reality happening in this country real time to my safe and quiet lounge. My dad rang from Japan. I told him, I'm safe. Didn't even feel it. and hang up. We had been told not to use the phone unless emergency. I was busy checking the info and tweeting. And I didn't want him to know I was almost in tears. I used to live in Christchurch. I spent my first two years in NZ there studying and having great adventures. It was nearly 20 years ago, but 20 years is a mere moment in Geological time. That could have been me under the rubble. And why did this have to happen to Christchurch, where no major earthquake had been on record until last September? Why not here in Wellington, or Hawkes Bay, where previously suffered severe earthquake damages?

I went on like that, with TV on and constantly checking the official web sites and tweeting with shaky hands, stopping at times to wipe away tears and blowing nose. I lost the sense of time. Forgot to have dinner until my cat complained at 8pm. Only managed a couple of toast.

A UK based psychologist who worked on the previous September quake tweeted, 'Recommend limiting exposure to repeated viewing of ChCh coverage, no matter how much you want to see it. Step away from the screen #eqnz'. An excellent advice, but very difficult to implement. It took me over an hour before I could finally turn my laptop off after tweeting,
'I'm going off line shortly. My thoughts are with you, Christchurch, and my soul is weeping. Be strong.'