Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Christchurch, New Zealand Earthquake

You may have noticed the link in my side bar to Kirly in NZ.  I went on a Lord of the Rings Movie Location Tour with Red Carpet Tours.  It was the vacation of a lifetime.  I made friends there and because of my trip, have made other friends with connections to NZ.  I hope to go back some day.  The Kiwi people were universally pleasant and friendly (like Texans!).  Christchurch was one of my favorite stops on the tour.  I was saddened to hear of the death and destruction which has taken place there.  Pray for the Kiwis. And remember that they and Australia have been among our best friends.

Rose found a link to live streaming local television coverage here.  I stayed up way too late watching that last night.  65 reported dead last I heard.  From the looks of the devastation, that number will likely go up as more people are found over the next days.

The damage is much worse than last September.  Look at this graph from GeoNet which is reporting 59 quakes.  Some of those after-shocks rival the big jolt at the beginnning.

Pray for New Zealand!  Remember the ANZAC spirit!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post. Blessing and comfort for the good people of New Zealand!

-Bagua

Rose said...

Incredible. Earthquake recovery is never fu

Oswald Bastable said...

Thanks from NZ!

Kirly said...

Thanks Bagua, Rose.

Oswald, I don't know what i can do at this point except pray and tell people about the situation. it is so much worse than i feared when i heard about it. and i hear there are still 300 people missing in a city of 350k. that lyttleton (sp?) is destroyed. children are orphaned. oh my. so sad.

Oswald Bastable said...

It's the worst in 90 years, with about 1/3 of the central business district destroyed. Nobody has any idea what the final death toll will be- 145 so far and at least 200 missing- but this is a popular tourist spot and many of them would not be on the missing list...

Kirly said...

Oswald, i'm so sorry. I have been there myself. There are always tourists sightseeing and people walking by on their way here and there. Including me when I was there. I imagine you're quite right about the missing ... some might not even be known to be missing yet.

Thanks for the update. Please keep us posted. I read CR regularly so i'll see updates there too.