Thanks Pete.
Two people are in Intensive Care one from falling masonary the other from flying glass. One death, the victim of a quake induced heart attack. Thats really a remarkably light list of serious casualties.
I've just been out this morning for a bit of a look around some of the suburban residential areas where by far the majority of Christchurch inhabitants live. The traditional "1/4 acre pavlova paradise". It hasn't been that for some time though, with new sections getting smaller and the original 1/4 acre ones subdivided with infill housing.
Nevertheless, still low density housing, mainly single storey with some two storey dwellings. Generally the majority of homes appear intact, although quite a few chimneys are down, but thats hardly major. Obviously there are some unlucky ones whio have sustained major damage, but it appears that by far the greatest percentage of residences are reasonably unscathed. This mainly thanks to our building codes which have been developed over the years to a standard that are more resistant to a certain amount of earthquake activity.
Very few people (relatively) live in the hard hit CBD, which has been pretty seriously decimated. A lot of older double brick construction mainly two or three storey buildings in this area. Approx one square kilometer surrounding Cathedral Square, the hub of the CBD, has been cordonned off to all but the official emergency clean up services working under the direction of of structural and civil engineers and the Urban Search And Rescue teams. Apparently all rubble is being checked by dogs for possibly buried victims before the heavy machinery is allowed to touch it. So far noone has been found there.
Water reticulation and power is back on for many of the suburbs, with the recommendation to boil drinking water for 3 minutes. There is very little new information on the state of sewerage system but it has obviously taken a big hit in some areas and probably but less obviously in others. It would be nice to know which areas can use it and which can't....
Just had another sharp aftershock as I type this. These are still coming through fairly frequently. Big worry now is gale force winds forecast for later today which may well topple damaged walls and other structurally compromised fixtures.