Camille is in Timaru at the moment.  She woke me up with a phone call about an hour ago to tell me she had just felt the biggest earthquake she has ever been in.  She has been feeling lots of aftershocks.  It turns out there has been a massive 7.4 earthquake 30k west of Christchurch.  Bound to be damage after that.  Let's hope there aren't any injuries or deaths.



This report puts it at 7.2 but NZ stations report 7.4

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010atbj.php

Edit:   Good collection of images here. 

Images available here: Stuff.co.nz

More images here

NZ Herald photos 

Civil Defence website.