NZ quake: Malaysians tell their story

From: http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne+News/Malaysia/Story/A1Story20100905-235608.html

It was the 25th of Ramadhan, my husband had gone to work for his early morning shift. I stayed up that night to do some work following a meeting with my supervisor the evening before. After eating some food for sahur, I was just about to sleep at around 4:30am. Not long after that I heard a loud rumbling noise and suddenly the house was moving violently and a lot of things fall down. I immediately shouted to wake up my daughter and grabbed her. The electricity was cut and we were in darkness.The quake lasted for about 1 minute. In the darkness, I managed to find the house key and immediately opened both doors in view of emergency escape. Few minutes later there was another strong aftershock. I called my husband who was at work, alhamdulillah he was safe, barely missed a cabinet falling over him. Worrying of another large quake, his colleague advised us to hide under a strong table or to go to a doorway if there is another one. A few minutes later, one of our neighbour knocked on our door to find out about us. They offered us candles and advice to store lots of water. They warned us that there will be many aftershocks that could last for a few days.
True to their word, there were more than 30 aftershocks up till now, some was as high as 5.1 Richter scale. Our electricity was restored at around 10am, and we immediately called our family home to inform them of our safety. My neighbour’s chimney collapsed, creating a large hole in their house. According to him, luckily there is a big tree preventing the chimney from falling on our house. We were shocked to see the extent of damage to buildings especially in the central city area. Alhamdulillah, all of our Malaysian friends were safe, some with more damage to their houses and belongings. This traumatic experience still lingered in our mind, reminding us how fragile our life is and remembering Allah’s greatness.From, Dr Azrina Md Ralib & Norhasanin Ahmad University of Otago