No, they say it can happen next week, in a few months, or in a few years even, so I guess they don't know.
And yes it was very long, because there were a few shocks, one after another. We watched our books and stuff fly from the shelves, so we cleaned them up when the first one calmed down. In three minutes the stuff was on the floor again
I just heard back from one of my friends and he said the earthquake was the longest he's ever experienced by far.
As far as I could see that was the big one - they don't come much bigger than 8.9. The Pacific plate is definitely making a few moves. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you. Christchurch is my home town and I thought that was bad - but this has been devastating
The wonderful people of anime have gathered a list of places to donate for the relief effort here.
And I don't mean any offense with this, but many of the affected kindly ask:
There are apparently several foreign English teachers with my organization who are currently missing. It might just be that they haven't been contacted yet, but please keep their families in your prayers, too. It must be horrible to have your son or daughter living in another country when something like this happens.
My next question is this. Where in the world are all the survivors going to live until/if their homes are rebuilt? Will they move them all to the south? This does not even take into account the feeding/clothing/jobs/etc., that will be needed for all these folks. Sigh. The scope of this is mind boggling.
And I don't mean any offense with this, but many of the affected kindly ask: