We have had lots of calls to check we are OK so thanks for thinking of us and yes we are all fine, we left Christchurch yesterday (Monday) as soon as Katie &Yann arrived and were 150 miles away when the earthquake struck. We were en route to Mt Cook where 30 million tonnes of ice calved of the Tasman glacier causing huge waves in the river below.

2^nd quake in 6 months and this one closer and not as deep. We saw a lot of damage when we were in Christchurch 3 weeks ago and stayed in a hotel in the street that seems to have been most badly damaged again.

We can only hope that things are not as bad as they seem from the first reports coming out of the City.

Trish and I were in Lyttleton, taking photographs of buildings damaged from the last quake and we hear that there has been a lot more damage this time.

NZ sits on the Pacific ring of fire, hence the volcanoes and Christchurch is directly over the fault line between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates that rub together horizontally hence the instability.