Report on the news today claimed that early estimates on damage came in at over 1 billion dollars, many areas without water for at least 2 days.
Yeah, it's pretty bad. Numbers on cost are being estimated between 1 and 2 billion depending on who you listen to. And the multiple aftershocks were reaching above 5 as well, with a 6 still *possibly* on the way in the next day or so, and storm winds on the way today, so the risk for further damage is not yet over.
The only reported casualty so far is a heart attack victim, with two others who were injured in hospital, but search and rescue are flying in dogs and reinforcements to go thru the rubble today in the centre of the city. We can only hope their search reveals that everyone has gotten out safely.
Christchurch does have a lot of brick buildings, but it also has a lot of areas that are quite swampy, with water under the soil. The soil just turned into water in the quake, so many other non brick buildings, especially to the north, have been split in half, or had part of their foundations sink considerably. One source has claimed as many as 20% of houses may be uninhabitable. That number seems pretty high to me, but with damage to the infrastructure such as water, gas and waste pipes, it is probably going to take months, if not years for the city to recover. I expect some areas will be without piped water for a lot longer than 2 days, but I believe the authorities are planning on bringing in water tankers to supply fresh water, and try and prevent illness from the contaminated water supplies. Credit has been given to speed at which the emergency services reacted in the crisis, and also to the relatively strict earthquake requirements in our building codes, and the extensive structural work carried out in recent years on some of the heritage buildings in the area, for reducing the damage incurred compared to other earthquakes of similar magnitude.
Power was back on for the majority of the residential areas of the city by last night, but the outlying rural areas could take up to a week to get power back. For the large number of dairy farms in the area, this is incredibly serious, as most of them rely on power for milking, and can only run on backup generators for a limited time.
My heart breaks when I see the pictures of the damage. I no longer live in Christchurch, but it is a very special city for me and I still have family who do. We still live close enough that we got a good shake and had to run for cover when the earthquake hit in the middle of the night, but to the best of my knowledge, we don't have any structural damage.
And then to have the heartbreaking news of the fatalities of 9 people in an air-crash near one of the glaciers on the west coast at midday, yesterday really was a dark day for all of New Zealand.
