Tsunami!

This morning, a pretty huge (8.3 magnitude) earthquake struck off the coast of Samoa, about 3,000km from New Zealand in the South Pacific. As tsunami waves of around 1m high were recorded (with waves as high as 4m in Tonga), a tsunami warning was issued here in New Zealand. It was expected to arrive at NZ's East Cape around 9.44am, and to hit Auckland (where we are) by 11.12am, coinciding with low tide. As advised, we packed up our backpacks, left them upstairs and headed out (with a bag comtaining our passports and other essential bits) to higher ground at the top of Mt Victoria to watch and wait. Luckily we had Rach's iPod, which has an FM radio tuner dongle, so we could keep track of the news reports.

In the end, as we stood with baited breath, the warning was cancelled and nothing happened! Lucky for us here in NZ, but not so lucky for the people of Samoa and American Samoa. Reports of up to 100 dead are still coming in.

Rob