*The information is this article is from Feb. 23rd, 2011 the day after the earthquake.
Members of the public who enter an area within the city center’s four main avenues after 6:30 p.m. local time will be arrested, according to the New Zealand Police website. Christchurch’s tallest building, the Grand Chancellor Hotel, is unstable and appears to be moving, police said. Workers have stopped searching the remains of the collapsed Canterbury Television building because of safety concerns.
“Today, all New Zealanders grieve for you, Christchurch,” Key said in Wellington as he prepared to board a plane for the wrecked city. “Many people have lost their lives. Families have lost their cherished loved ones. Mates have lost their mates.”
New Zealand declared a national state of emergency to coordinate help from outside the Christchurch region, according to the Civil Defense Department’s website. While people continue to present themselves at triage centers and hospitals, confirmed numbers of injured weren’t available.
Thirty aftershocks with a magnitude of 4 to 6 have been felt since yesterday’s temblor, the defense department said.
About 300 people are unaccounted for with some possibly trapped in buildings and the Grand Chancellor has been evacuated, New Zealand Police said.
“There are 30 people we’re aware that are trapped alive in a couple of buildings and there have been a number of bodies removed,” Aaron Gilmore, a National Party member of parliament, told Bloomberg Television.
Twenty-three Japanese students who were enrolled at an education college in the city of about 400,000 are included in the missing, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today. One Australian is among the dead, Prime Minister Julia Gillardsaid in Canberra today.
Australia is sending 300 police and 140 Australian rescuers are to join the relief efforts. Japan will send a 70-person emergency relief team, Prime Minister Naoto Kan told his nation’s parliament.
The death toll from the quake, the strongest since September when the city was shaken by a 7.0 magnitude temblor, is the worst since the Napier earthquake in 1931 killed 256. Yesterday’s quake sent office workers fleeing into streets strewn with shattered glass, paper, bricks and broken concrete.
Damage to central city buildings was greater than the September temblor because it was shallower and centered just 10 kilometers southeast of Christchurch, according to http://geonet.org.nz. The Sept. 4 quake was focused 55 kilometers northwest of the city and was also deeper.
Yesterday’s temblor struck at 12:51 p.m. local time during the lunchtime break, whereas the September temblor hit at 4:35 a.m. and claimed no lives.
In the 17-story Forsyth Barr Ltd. building in the city center, the stairwell collapsed and employees were lifted out by cranes, John Owen, a director at Forsyth Barr, said in a telephone interview. “It took four or five hours to get everybody out,” he said.
Flooding, Cracks
Cracks several meters long run along some streets. Other main roads swell with sandy mud and surface flooding stretching across footpaths and much of the roads.
On the corner of Gloucester Street and Oxford Terrace in the center, the 10-level Brannigans building’s windows have been shattered. Helmeted inspectors, meanwhile, go through the task of checking buildings individually.
As reporters interviewed fire officers, an aftershock rippled the glass exterior of the Art Gallery, which is serving as the civil defense base. The shake toppled a chimney off the heritage-listed Art Center.
Water Shortages
With lines stretching three blocks, residents Paul and Anna McElroy gave up waiting for water earlier today at the Phillipstown school in a suburb southeast of the city’s business center. They later returned to fill as many containers as possible once lines shortened.
“Water is what we need,” said Paul, 42, as he loaded soda bottles of water into the car. “They need more of these places. There are only six or so and it’s a real logjam.”
The quake may be the costliest natural disaster for insurers since 2008. Insured losses from the temblor may be $12 billion, Michael Huttner, an analyst at JPMorgan, said in a note to clients. That would be the most expensive calamity since the $19.9 billion loss from Hurricane Ike, which struck the U.S. in 2008, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a New York-based trade group.
The New Zealand dollar rose from a two-month low on speculation markets are overpricing the probability of a rate cut by the Reserve Bank following the quake.
Currency Impact
The currency climbed 0.3 percent to 74.83 U.S. cents as of 5:55 p.m. in Sydney from 74.64 cents in New York yesterday. It fell to as low as 74.33 cents earlier, the weakest since Dec. 23. The so-called kiwi rose to 62.11 yen from 61.7 yen.
The cost of protecting New Zealand sovereign bonds from non-payment fell 1 basis point to 63.5 basis points as of 3:23 p.m. in Wellington, according to Deutsche Bank AG. They jumped 5 basis points yesterday, the biggest increase in almost three months.
The quake served as a reminder of the jolt in Christchurch on Sept. 4 that shook consumer confidence and contributed to a 0.2 percent drop in gross domestic product in the third quarter. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand estimates the September temblor caused NZ$5 billion ($3.7 billion) of damage.
“It’s going to delay the rate at which repair work on infrastructure proceeds,” Mark Binns, head of infrastructure at Fletcher Building Ltd., said in a Television New Zealand interview. “We’re going to have to look at resources from other parts of New Zealand and potentially offshore.”
The government selected Fletcher Building to manage Christchurch’s rebuilding following the Sept. 4 quake.
From http://www.bloombert.net/
Please PRAY for our missionary family in New Zealand - Bob and Judy Addington. There photo is below:
Region(s): Pacific
Field(s): New Zealand
Poster: download PDF
Website: click here to visit
Bio: The Bob Addington family was commissioned to go to New Zealand at the 1984 General Conference in Anaheim, California, and arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, in July 1986. Starting with a few contacts, they began Bible studies in their home and church services in a local school hall. In the first four and one-half years the church grew to 75 people. In 1998 the Addingtons moved to Hamilton to pastor and open the Christian College of Theology. In Hamilton, the Lord has given them inroads into the European community as well as immigrants. In addition to pastoring a local church, Addington is the area coordinator of New Zealand and Cook Islands. The Addingtons travel extensively throughout the islands teaching, instructing, encouraging, promoting unity, home friendship groups, and leadership seminars.
Area Coordinator: Robert W. Addington
Superintendent/President:
Population: 4100000
Area: 104,452 sq. mi.
Capital: Wellington
Languages: English, Maor
Religions: Anglican, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic
Lying about 1,250 miles east of Australia, New Zealand consists of two islands that have some of the world’s most magnificent and dramatic features and numerous outlying islands, so scattered that they range from the tropical to the antarctic. The nation is about the size of Colorado. In recent years extremely liberal social policies have been adopted. For example, prostitution was legalized in 2003 and in 2004 same-sex unions were recognized. New Zealand is the world’s only country in which all its highest offices have been occupied simultaneously by women: Queen Elizabeth II, Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, Prime Minister Helen Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives Margaret Wilson and Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias were all in office between March 2005 and August 2006. Lloyd Moreau established the UPC of New Zealand in 1969. According to the 2006 Annual Field Report, the New Zealand church has 680 constituents, 325 ministers, and 19 churches and preaching points. Annual meetings for the New Zealand church include a leadership seminar, youth camp, ladies’ retreat, men’s retreat, and general conference. In late 2006 Arlo and Jane Moehlenpah taught a Creation Seminar. The church also strives to have a special focus on children’s ministry. Wayne Goodare is working in the campus ministry.
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