One of life's little ironies - an earthquake in Christchurch, NZ...

Image via WikipediaOne of life's little ironies. New Zealand: Population about 4.25 million. A first world country for sure. A rich country? Comparatively perhaps. New Zealand has given aid of about NZ$14 million to other countries in the Pacific and beyond who have been the victims of earthquakes and tsunamis in recent years.

Now the Canterbury region and Christchurch City in the South Island have been rocked by an earthquake of 7.1 in magnitude on the Richter Scale, on a par with Haiti EQ many months ago which killed many tens of thousands and made a million or more homeless. Good timing (4.35am)  a superior building code and help from the big man above, has so far prevented deaths by injury througfh the EQ; though there is still one severely injured middle aged man in IC in Christchurch Hospital, and eight fatal heart attacks most likely caused by the quake. Christchurch has also been hit by up to a thousand aftershocks day and night ever since.

Many people are still homeless and many more will need repaired  or rebuilt homes. In some suburbs it will be impossible to do either because of the state of the ground. But the biggest problem in Christchurch right now is the damaged sewerage system which could take until 2012 to rectify. I think Christchurch should be offered some overseas help in this area. Kiwis are proud people who  regularly help others, but are reluctant to ask for help themselves. It is obvious that it is beyond their means to reconstruct their broken sewerage system quickly. They don't deserve to have to rely on chemical toilets for the next eighteen months.

Related articles by Zemanta

• You: New Zealand: 7.0 earthquake reduces buildings to rubble in Christchurch (telegraph.co.uk)
• New Zealand Earthquake In Christchurch [Video] (realestateradiousa.com)
• "New Zealand earthquake rips a new fault line across the world... moving one side of the earth 11ft to the right" and related posts (asianenergy.blogspot.com)
• New Zealand earthquake: Curfew imposed by Christchurch police (guardian.co.uk)

• New Zealand earthquake: picking up the pieces (telegraph.co.uk)