Christchurch New Zealand earth­quake, a week on
The mas­sive recov­ery oper­a­tion con­tin­ues after the 7.1 mag­ni­tude earth­quake that hit Christchurch at 4.36am on Sat­ur­day 4 Sep­tem­ber, leav­ing a dam­age bill of NZ$4billion and phys­i­cal­ly injur­ing a few people.
The Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (AREC) mem­bers quick­ly estab­lished an on air net and observed the oper­a­tional sta­tus of the repeater sys­tems, and apart from at least one switch­ing to emer­gency pow­er all was fine.
AREC Assis­tant Nation­al Direc­tor, Geoff Chap­man ZL3PX said des­ig­nat­ed emer­gency fre­quen­cies for on the 80m, 60m and 40m bands, plus 2m band sim­plex were activated.
The Christchurch AREC Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Bus ZK9EAC, and Comms Vehi­cle ZK9EAD oper­at­ed on all those fre­quen­cies. They were deployed for three days in the ini­tial recov­ery phase of the dis­as­ter in con­junc­tion with the military.
AREC also pro­vid­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the vol­un­teer clean-up teams. The Christchurch City Civ­il Defence per­ma­nent radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems were unaf­fect­ed. AREC mem­bers have been required as radio oper­a­tors. A total of eight radio ama­teurs are known in var­i­ous sup­port activ­i­ties in Christchurch.
The AREC North Can­ter­bury Sec­tion pro­vid­ed oper­a­tors from day one for the Civ­il Defence Emer­gency Man­ag­ment Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at var­i­ous loca­tions includ­ing Waimak EOC (Ran­gio­ra), Kaiapoi Wel­fare Cen­tre, and Pines-Kaira­ki Wel­fare Cen­tre (Pines Beach Hall).
Geoff ZL3PX said this sup­port pro­vid­ed by radio ama­teurs is con­tin­u­ing with over 235 duty hours so far involv­ing about a dozen operators.
After­shocks are still being felt on an hourly basis and it is weary­ing to say the least. In the past week there have been 388 seis­mic shocks record­ed rang­ing from 3 to 5.4 mag­ni­tude, with seis­mol­o­gists indi­cat­ing this activ­i­ty is show­ing signs of easing.
Nation­al Cri­sis Man­age­ment Cen­tre in a Sit­u­a­tion Report today list­ed its pri­or­i­ties as restora­tion of sew­er­age ser­vices in the worst-affect­ed areas, imme­di­ate and long term wel­fare and hous­ing needs, a grow­ing demand and ongo­ing need for psy­choso­cial ser­vices, busi­ness impacts and per­son­al finances, and the need for coor­di­nat­ed, reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the affect­ed communities.
Var­i­ous spe­cial­ist resources from through­out New Zealand have been assigned to the earth­quake affect­ed areas, such as build­ing inspec­tors who are deter­min­ing the safe­ty of dam­aged homes and com­mer­cial buildings.
Author­i­ties believe that most schools should be able to open after being closed for a week. Some road infra­struc­ture remains yet to be repaired. Most pow­er and tele­phone ser­vices were quick­ly restored.
Shops, pubs and hotels began trad­ing for the first time in a week and Christchurch moves fur­ther into recov­ery mode.
— IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee Chair­man, Jim Lin­ton VK3PC with sup­port from AREC Assis­tant Nation­al Direc­tor Geoff Chap­man ZL3PX and others.