God has His hand on NZ earthquake rebuilding

By Chanah Gillman, just returned from Christchurch

Although it didn’t last very long on the news here in Australia – the devastation in Christchurch, New Zealand is still very real and the destruction is almost overwhelming.

The shallowness of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake is what made it so catastrophic with the horizontal force back and forth at ground level reaching 2G. The estimate cost of rebuilding has reached $16 billion (NZD) with 60per cent of homes needing repair.

There continues to be homes without power, water and sewage. Now that the State of Emergency has been lifted it is expected that 20,000 more names will be added to the welfare queue.

Prime Minister John Key has reported about 10,000 houses in Christchurch will have to be demolished because of damage and parts of the city will have to be abandoned altogether. Several hundred central city commercial buildings will also have to be bulldozed. Earthquakes can cause sections of earth to liquefy and push up to the surface as watery silt. In Christchurch, 260,000 tonnes of silt have already been scraped away.

Potentially there are some areas which will need to be abandoned and will need other alternatives for people to live in because the land has been so badly damaged, cannot be fixed and certainly not in a reasonable time frame.

Modular houses are being brought in to provide temporary housing for some of the many thousands of displaced homeowners, some of whom will have to abandon their wrecked homes and land.

The city centre will be cordoned off for some time and Army officials guard each entry point. People caught within the area for no reason are arrested on the spot. Sadly some people’s homes have been robbed and cars stolen but there are many more stories that speak of grace and ove shown to each other, like the man who tapped a well in his backyard to provide water for others. People with power setting up phone recharging stations on their front lawns and the University students going out in
teams to help those who need it.

Being there and looking into the centre of the city was chilling. At night, complete darkness. The city we used to call home is so badly broken. We experienced multiple 4.0 magnitude aftershocks and many smaller ones while we were there. We heard countless stories of how people were affected by the quakes and how others managed to survive. Our church friends recognise the protective hand of God in all of the destruction and our other friends, we pray, will find Him through the rebuilding process.

Download the latest Pulse for more photos and information about the rebuilding of Christchurch