At 4 am on Saturday the 4thof September there was an unexpected earthquake that hit Canterbury. It reached 7.1 on the Richter scale which was about the same as the earthquake that happened in Haiti. In Christchurch there are lots of unstable buildings that just collapsed and left bricks lying on the ground everywhere.
Houses all over the city were badly damaged and many are uninhabitable at the moment. At least 100,000 homes were affected in this disaster and 450 will have to be demolished. Even though the main earthquake that happened on Saturday is over aftershocks are causing more trouble.
Ruptured pipes have caused many dangers as sewage pipes might mix with peoples drinking water and make them very sick. That is why everyone that has water has to boil it for three minutes before using it. Falling glass and rubble was and still is another danger during this time.
