Aftershocks

As tremors continue to shake the foundations and rattle the confidence of a quake-scarred city, some of the many ramifications are beginning to emerge.

Christchurch and its environs have been hit by about 150 noticeable aftershocks to date, some quite strong, and scientific opinion seems to suggest these may continue intermittently for some days, if not weeks.

The Government has rightly earned plaudits for its prompt response to the disaster, and for its hastily unveiled support plans, mapped out at Cabinet on Monday.

The $5 million contribution to the mayoral fund set up for hardship cases will be very welcome; $94 million for road repairs will allay fears that essential infrastructural reconstruction will be unduly delayed; appointing Cabinet minister Gerry Brownlee as minister in charge of earthquake recovery, based in Christchurch, and as chair of a new Cabinet committee on Canterbury reconstruction, will establish and maintain Government involvement and oversight in the weeks and months ahead - all the better to "knock heads" together, as Prime Minister John Key put it, should bureaucratic roadblocks be encountered.

The ongoing tectonic settling clearly presents further physical danger to residents, businesses and civil defence, demolition and reconstruction teams - in particular from those buildings already badly damaged and crumbling.

Many of the initiatives already under way are designed to address precisely these physical manifestations of "damage" to the 500 or so identified commercial buildings and the 100,000 private dwellings.

But what it is unlikely to do, in the short term at least, is address some of the less obvious but nonetheless critical consequences of Saturday's devastating 7.1 shock and the subsidiary tremors that have arrived in its wake.

Foremost among these will be the impact on the psyche of the residents of Canterbury, and this should be giving civil authorities considerable pause.

It is hard to begin the reconstruction effort, to return to normality, when a seemingly malevolent faultline is agitated and restless - unpredictably so.

Anecdotal reports continue to arrive from Christchurch of families and individuals recurrently traumatised by aftershocks which have continued night and day, ranging in intensity from magnitude 3.1 to 5.4.

These in their own right constitute significant earthquakes, and will have contributed to sleep deprivation, anxiety - especially in children - and as yet unrevealed depths of emotional trauma.

Some of that may be displaced by the exigencies of people's situations, making the best of it and managing the practical necessities of life: water, sewage disposal, food, power, heating.