Lat­est news from the Christchurch earthquake
Still play­ing a role after the earth­quake that hit the Christchurch area of New Zealand since Tues­day 22 Feb­ru­ary, swing­ing into action from day one.
The Ama­teur Radio Emer­gency Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (AREC) reports that until todays move­ment from a res­cue to a recov­ery phase all engage­ment had been with res­cue teams.
AREC spokesman Stu­art Smart ZL4FZ says, “At this stage we are still exten­sive­ly sup­port­ing the urban res­cue operation.
“There are about 250 staff in the field and all of that com­mu­ni­ca­tion is com­ing back through AREC.”
AREC mem­bers are trained for such dis­as­ters and are a part of the nor­mal response under arrange­ments with New Zealand Civ­il Defence and Emer­gency Management.
Its oper­a­tions have been con­fined to VHF fre­quen­cies and avoid­ed use of HF chan­nels iden­ti­fied for that purpose.
The Christchurch May­or Bob Chap­man announced the switch to the recov­ery phase with death toll of 161 and 200 missing.
Some 67% of affect­ed peo­ple have had water sup­plies restored, and even few­er are recon­nect­ed to the sew­er, while 27,000 are with­out power.
The Min­is­ter of Civ­il Defence declared a State of Nation­al Emer­gency which has been extend­ed until mid­night 7 March.
— Jim Lin­ton, VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.