Christchurch dis­as­ter a day on
The death toll stands at 75, dozens yet to be res­cued from beneath build­ing rub­ble, and hun­dreds of peo­ple still miss­ing are still the des­per­ate scene 24 hours after an earth­quake struck the Christchurch area of New Zealand.
The mas­sive res­cue effort that now involves 300 res­cuers boost­ed by urban experts from Aus­tralia has res­cued 20 peo­ple so far and Christchurch May­or Bob Park­er said a pock­et of 15 had been found in the TV3 build­ing, the heart of local tele­vi­sion production.
Mean­time under nor­mal arrange­ments, the mem­bers of Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tion (AREC) were busy. Check out the NZART web­site under — What and Who is AREC. A report on the fre­quen­cies in use or activ­i­ties was yet to be received.
New Zealand Prime Min­is­ter John Key said a State of Emer­gency con­tin­ued and those in the affect­ed areas need­ed to keep their resolve and good spir­its as the whole coun­try was right behind them. He acknowl­edged the sup­port already giv­en and being offered from overseas.
The earth­quake dis­as­ter bill of last Sep­tem­ber (7.1 at a depth of more than 30 metres) was put at $8 bil­lion but the lat­est quake (6.3 and at a depth of just five kilo­me­tres) could be dou­ble that amount.
Christchurch and its sur­round­ing areas account for 500,000 peo­ple, about half the pop­u­la­tion of the South Island of New Zealand.
— Jim Lin­ton, VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.