Little over 24 hours ago that this happened - alot of worry for alot of people as the phone systems were overloaded/dead so people were not knowing for hours if their friends/family were ok..
Worst thing was Christchurch was just getting under way rebuilding from the last round of earthquakes, not quite as bad as this one but still quite alot of houses needed repair.. This latest one was a bit of a smasher, not strong as such but since it was centred only 5km underground heaps more effect felt.. Gonna be a long time before people feel secure living there, even now i can imagine people will not be sleeping well waiting for the next one that may or may not happen..
Already we are also seeing a flowon effect that will happen for the coming months - rugby world cup games that were supposed to be there will have to be shifted to other regions.. even if the stadium was/will be ok there would not be enough supporting hotels/restaurants etc undamaged to cope with visitors so things like that are another hit to the region that was expecting a good time and some tourism dollars.. and there will no doubt be more of those sorts of stories to come.
