With no warning the earth roared and shook us ferociously. Like my colleagues in the features department of Christchurch newspaper The Press, I dived under my desk.
I'm a music critic and as we shook and my mind's eye flashed images of my four children I was pelted with CDs including, ironically, an Underworld album.
The same thing happened to me on September 4, I was even hit by the exact same CD, but this was completely different and a much more visceral and potently deadly quake.
Halfway through the 6.3 quake I wanted to see if my colleagues were OK so stupidly stuck my head out from under my desk only to be hit by a piece of roof. I said "F**k!" at the top of my lungs and it was drowned out by the sound of our building falling down around us.
Across the room from under their desk someone was yelling "yahoo" like it was a fun ride.
I was certain we were all going to die. Things seemed to be happening slowly but quickly at the same time.
I had a fight over something stupid with my partner before I left for work.
Just a few short hours later all I hoped was that I would have the opportunity to see him and hold him again.
Running late, I had given my children a quick peck before leaving. I wondered if it would be my last memory of them.
After what seemed like forever the shaking stopped and my colleagues emerged and checked each other.
"Get out," screamed one, "stay where you are," said another.
Somehow I had the presence of shaken mind to dig out my handbag and cellphone from the rubble.
We walked down the back stairs which were OK, as we left I looked to my right. All I could see of the busy newsroom was the roof of the three-storied building. No people in sight. I had just walked through there 10 minutes prior.
A split second decision to answer an email instead of having a cigarette break probably saved my life.
Outside the inner CBD looked like a war zone. Outside on the street strangers were holding each other and crying and gazing bewildered at the gutted ghetto surrounding us.
The Press' incredible fashion editor, Kate Fraser, 70, and I linked arms. I tried to tell myself it was for her benefit but she was steadying me.
I saw colleagues crying, people covered in blood. We congregated in a spot left empty by the September 4 quake.
The editor, Andrew Holden, a strong and stoic man, kissed me on the cheek and as he did so I saw he had tears in his eyes.
His usually immaculate suit bore a smudge of dust on one shoulder.
He wanted me to sit with his partner and their small baby while she breastfed, so I did so while simultaneously trying to txt my partner and parents with no luck.
A male colleague who is always immaculately dressed and who speaks like a BBC newsreader had clearly been so frightened that he had wet himself.
For some inexplicable reason it was this sight that made me realise the enormity of what we had experienced.
The naked desperation and fear we all felt was manifest on his pants.
Phone systems were overloaded so I couldn't reach my loved ones.
It was the same for everyone, people compared phones, shared phones, chainsmoked, stood on rubble with heads at funny angles hoping for reception.
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