Biggie Downunder!

I was just boarding a flight to Christchurch to ride the Port Hills when it hit. NZ is so small that everyone knows someone who knows someone affected. Thoughts are with everyone down south now having to live in surreal conditions.

Things like this make you cherish (rather than sweat) the small things in life. A stranger kindly gave me a lift 80km back home to Taupo, where my niece was mushing up peas and distributing them methodically on the carpet. Never been so happy to see mushy peas.

Just heard that one of my work colleagues from Christchurch airport tower has tragically lost her life.

Very sorry to hear this. We have family in Rutland St, St Albans and Heywood Tce in Richmond and still have no word. They should be OK there, but there is a random element to these events that always scares you.

Got 3 close friends down there, happy to say that all well and accounted for. me and mrstubing were glued to the tv till late last night, coverage has been both excellent and horrifying.
Kia Kaha ChCh!

Just heard that one of my work colleagues from Christchurch airport tower has tragically lost her life.

Very sorry to hear this.

I’ve heard from my mother who was out of the city on holiday that my family scattered across the city are all ok, but an elderly relative is traumatised and desperate to leave. I’ve not been able to get in contact with anyone actually in the city, my sister who lives on the hills has apparently lost her house

Thinking of you all out there. Was in Christchurch a few years back and fell in love with NZ. NZCol, keep the updates coming when you can.

Finally heard from my father in law, our family and friends in Christchurch are all OK. My brother in law lives just the other side of the river to the East of the city centre, within easy walking distance of the centre, and the rest of our family and friends are in St Albans area to the north of the city. Mrs Ratadog VERY relieved.

Apart from lack of power/utilities, everything else in those areas seems OK if this is of any help to anyone else.

As said above, my Bro-in-law is in a USAR team. Email from his Mrs today…

“He will be
scarred for life by the things he has seen. Being one of the smallest
guys, he has put his life on the line more times than he can count
burrowing into buildings to get out survivors – eg said that if he had
an extra Tshirt on he wouldn’t fit down the passage they had made –
wondered if he’d get out himself when aftershocks made it even
tighter. Has worn out pair of boots already because lying on stomach
using toes to move forward and back only. Arms cut to shreds on broken
glass, using fingers, pliers and pocket knife to cut through buiding
materials to get to survivors… Have rescued 29 people so far… was
in charge of PGG building yesterday afternoon – NSW USAR teams refused
to go down where he was working so he carried on while they worked the
outside… once he got to Chch about 3pm Tues, he worked
for 28 hrs until 7pm Wed with only a two hour sleep in the front seat of
a car from 4-6am on Wed am – but now doing 12 hours on 12 hours off
from today. I feel so proud of him – as of last night he and his team have
rescued 29 trapped people, but seen horrific sights too.”

Good work fella.

chooperT – that man deserves a DB.

Not much else to report, we’re all sorted so things have quietened off for us now. Wife is off Tues as she is an engineer so her teams are working with USar now to do assessments on the fly. She is going Tue to sort out some tunnel/bridge stuff. Gave me other friend a lift to airport yest as she is DVI so now very busy doing that – she’s tough but the bush fires and tsunami and now this are wearing her down.

It’s grim. Thing is it affects everyone , i was talking to someone yesterday who has family etc there who are all OK and he simply burst into tears. I know how he feels though as it is utter helplessness.

Thanks for the update, Col. Everyone I know in NZ seems to be knocked back, too. 🙁

I raised the question of your adsl problems with my mate in Telecom. He hinted that he was rather busy with other things at the moment.
To be honest, he didn’t so much hint,…… if I was to quote him verbatim I would be banned from here for life! 🙂

Chin up, mate. We are all still here for you.

I raised the question of your adsl problems with my mate in Telecom. He hinted that he was rather busy with other things at the moment.
To be honest, he didn’t so much hint,…… if I was to quote him verbatim I would be banned from here for life!

Ha yeah, i know it seems unimportant – challenge for me was that I am on call and needing access into systems remotely which i can’t do – shifted house on Sunday ADSL provisioning was finishing Tuesday then Bam ! Working around it with some funky tethering when required or driving back into office to sort it. No great shakes. No pun intended.

This thread really makes you see the value of the internet and forums, people communicating and sharing information and stories about events the other side of the world. Shame the subjects is so sad though.

Don;t know if anyone still interested in an update but here goes anyway.

Cleanup still continuing, a very large number of bodies still trapped in a couple of key locations, most of the randoms have now been dealt with. Lots and lots of distributed ones where facades and the very-kiwi love of overhead covers has meant they fell down. So many 1’s and 2’s of people met their end under these. Acquaintence was in his car having some lunch when masonry buried it. Hardest thing is those who have people who went out and have simply not reappeared, know of one whose husband went to work and no word since. Have to assume he is in there somewhere 🙁 Usar, fire, police, ambo and all other services down the most amazing job. Wife down there doing on the fly building assessments which is not all that much fun. This is a biblical disaster for NZ, i’m not sure economically we can cope, much less the impact of 250ish dead on top of the pike river miners. All too much.
I’m off to meet a few peeps for a couple of minutes silence to remember all those that were going about their day to day business and never came home. 😐
Well there you go, how deep is this affecting people ? I just joined about 30-40 randoms in the street outside. Traffic stopped, silence, tears.

🙁 chin up col. glad your alright man.

I’m positively brilliant compared to others 😀
And my poor wife, on top of all that she now is sharing a caravan with two sweaty engineers ! Poor girl. Although I reckon she’ll have them in a fart-off 😆

My mate is in Auckland and so far he is not affected.

I’m hearing that Wellie has just been shook by a 5, plus more rumblings in CHCH.
Hope you guys are OK!

Link?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4720071/Tremors-shake-Christchurch-Wellington

We’re off to Christchurch for a month on Saturday. Not sure how it’s going to go, my mother tried to dissuade us from coming, but I think it’s best to still go. The house we’re staying in still has no power, water or sewerage 😕

This is an interesting link- real time updates of frequency and magnitude of earthquakes in ChCh.

http://quake.crowe.co.nz/%5B/url%5D

That was quite an exciting jolt last night. I had just landed on the sofa and was under the door frame like a flash. Not conducive to a relaxing nights sleep at all.

NZCol – Must of been quite disconcerting when things started shaking. Thanks for all the updates.

Does make you evaluate your priorities.

Geonet is another good earthquake resource as it has real time drum readouts of all the drums. The chch one is peppered with small quakes. They had the same one as us last night but my missus in a caravan in rangiora said she didnt feel it. Possibly asvthey were laughing so much at the orange/cream/brown decor in the van !!!

Had a text from Ms fbk this morning saying it felt like someone had just grabbed the bed she was lying in and shaken it really hard. A bit shaken up as she’s visiting family over there (Wellington) and wasn’t used to it.

I had a look on a few websites after that – you guys do get quite a few don’t you! 😯

Yep we sure do but always have esp. in Wellington. ChCh was a bit more of a bolter for a large quake with some faults they had never expected to be that active. The main southern divide and wellington faults (there are 4 main ones going through the city) are all predicted to be the ones to go. So yeah we get a lot of smaller shakes, co-incidence last night ? I dunno but having seen what happened last week i bet there are a few bags under eyes this morning.