NZ Resident Describes Earthquake Chaos

Wen Baragrey, a writer and resident in Christchurch, New Zealand, where an earthquake with a 7.0 temblor struck on Saturday morning, wrote of the account, which MSNBC.com reprinted. “When it hit, I was awake, having terrible trouble sleeping,” writes Baragrey. “I felt the first shifts with my bed shaking and I leaped straight out of it and ran.” After dislocating his shoulder and putting it back in himself, Baragrey collected his daughter, her friend, and two dogs, a shepherd and a collie, and fled in their four-wheel-drive car. “When it finally stopped, we were all screaming. … We dodged it all and got out of the city as fast as we could. None of the traffic lights were working, so it was chaos,” he writes. According to the Los Angeles Times, the massive earthquake damaged buildings, cut out power, and shut down the Christchurch Airport.