'You can't hear yourself screaming, it's just the roar of rocks'

Charlie Hudson and Eddy near the massive boulders that fell as she walked around Sumner. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Sumner woman Charlie Hudson is considering her family's future in Christchurch after Monday's quake's which came within a few centimetres of taking her life.

After the 5.6 quake on Monday Mrs Hudson met a friend and after making sure their children were safe at the local school went to check on the nearby house of a friend who was at work.

In hindsight she says their decision to walk down Heberden Ave, which runs along the bottom of a rocky cliff at the eastern end of the suburb was "idiotic" given the likelihood of aftershocks.

"We probably got to where that large rock is when the second quake hit."

The boulder she indicates is about the size of a bus and is deeply embedded in the road and footpath because of its sheer mass and the force of its impact.

"We didn't know which way to go. I remember running around like a headless chicken with rocks this way and rocks that way and we managed, just past this rock to get this gate open and just run up the driveway."

"I remember trying to talk to Kate to tell her to run and I had to shout at the top of my lungs.

"You can't hear yourself screaming, it's just the roar of rocks as they detach themselves from the cliff and they're crashing through the bush. It's such an alien sound."

When the shaking stopped and dust cleared "the rocks were maybe a foot away from us - we had a very, very lucky escape."

While the February quake killed three in Sumner, this time, despite even worse rock falls in the area, no one was badly hurt.

But just down the road, another large boulder resting in the middle of a playing field offers another example of how much worse Sumner could have fared this week.

The boulder left a trail of destruction as it careened down the bush-clad hill, and a large crater in Hebenden Ave as it bounced over the road through a fence and into the field.

Had it come down 30m in either direction it would have crashed through homes.

Mrs Hudson's small white terrier Eddy, which was with her during the rockfall, was "obviously not traumatised at all".

Sniffing at the rubble, Eddy perks up as a sewer main dragged down the cliff bursts sending foul smelling water over the boulders.

"It's lovely it's a very desirable area to live in at the moment with a waterfall of raw sewage and no power," Mrs Hudson jokes.

But having coped reasonably well in the previous quakes, including three weeks without power and water after the February quake, Mrs Hudson and her family were considering moving from Christchurch.

She feared for the welfare of her children.

"They're terrified now and I don't know how responsible it is at the moment, even just for the next 12 months, to be frightened all the time."

"This time, long term I think we're going to have to make some quite tough choices."