My family sobbed behind me, clutching at each other. Me? The shock hadn’t quite sunk deep enough yet. Being the only one dressed, I walked outside to see what had happened. As I opened the door, a spine chilling sight met me.

Our house sits near the top of a cliff that overlooked the sea in our coastal town. The first thing I noticed was that half the cliff had fallen into the sea, leaving us only a couple of metres away from the edge, like our neighbours.

I walked down the street that remained. On the side of the road that survived, lights had crashed down on top of cars and trees had fallen into rooves. People were running from their houses. Our neighbours who we’d never actually spoken to were clutching eeach other, as my own family had done.

I stopped stock still, my mouth dropping open. Another lesson came to my mind. I turned around and ran back home, picking around fallen objects and cars as I went. If the tremor caused by the bomb exploding caused this on land….

What was happening in the water?