A fire breaks out at a massage parlour as the Prime
Minister John Key and Mayor Bob Parker survey the damage to
the city after the earthquake late this afternoon.
Credit:NZPA / David Alexander.
A massive earthquake in Canterbury early this morning has
caused billions of dollars of damage, cut water and power,
destroyed houses and roads, and triggered large aftershocks to
leave residents on edge.
Central Christchurch streets are piled with rubble, cordoned
off and under curfew after the magnitude 7.1 quake, which
struck 30km west of Christchurch about 4.30am. A large fire
in a central city building this afternoon created more work
for an already stretched fire service.
Eighty police officers from Auckland will help with general
duties and recovery, and an air force Hercules is flying to
the city with 42 urban search and rescue personnel and three
dogs.
Two New Zealand Red Cross emergency management teams with 21
members were helping around the city, using 4WD vehicles to
look for people cut off in the countryside west of
Christchurch.
Around a dozen people had been pulled from either lifts,
buildings or holes in the ground.
Power and phone services are being restored to the region,
but water shortages and contamination remain a problem.
The 4.35am quake, the nation's most damaging since 1931,
forced many people from their homes, but the only person
known to suffer critical injury is a man in his 50s who is in
intensive care in Christchurch Hospital. A second man
suffered serious cuts, and many had cuts, scratches and
broken limbs.
The province remained on edge as darkness fell.
"We've just had another strong aftershock now," reporter
Tania Butterfield, of the Pegasus Bay News, told the ODT just
after 7pm.
Ms Butterfield has spent the day touring the worst areas of
damage.
She said this morning in New Brighton people appeared
reasonably relaxed and were walking their dogs down to
inspect the cracked Bridge St bridge, relieved the quake
hadn't triggered a tsunami.
However, the scene was markedly different in the upmarket
suburb of Merivale where many properties were damaged and a
large section of masonry from a church which had toppled on
top of a van, crushing it.
"That's when it started the hit me how bad it really was."
In Kaiapoi, a town 17km north of Christchurch, a stunned
crowd watched the demolition of the historic Blackwells
Department store which was badly damaged by the quake.
Nearby, residents were shaking their heads, barely able to
believe the ground had shifted so much a car-park had dropped
a metre into the earth.
"People were saying 'This happened in 2 minutes and now it's
not going to go away.' The full magnitude of what happened
was starting to sink in."
Civil Defence staff have been visiting Christchurch city,
Selwyn District and Kaiapoi to check the damage.
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