OT NZ Earthquakes continuing

they had another big aftershock today too. estimated cost to the nation is about $1,000 per person. thats about $4.5 billion dollars. the main seaport for the south island is in Chch, that is going to seriously cause some problems getting shipped everything into the south island. coming the day after the govt bails out the SCF company too. geez. recession, whats that. construction industry and building tradesmen will be in work for a long long time. building or repairing or earthquake-proofing an estimated 100K homes alone will take a long time. where folks will live in the meantime, who knows. might have to relocate til the homes are rebuilt, then move back. that is still a lot of people to relocate in our small population. at least we are heading into summer, i guess that is something. gives plenty of months to get new homes built. do we have enough skilled builders/tradesmen in NZ to do it in a short time. oh dear. :( j.

"Carol in NZ" wrote ... If anybody is interested

interested

Thanks for posting the link Carol. useful to us in Oz as well. Bronnie

Even though I know that you are on the ring of fire, I never realised what a seismically active place New Zealand was. Wow... thanks for educating us.

Janner France

lots and lots of old historic beautiful buildings downtown are damaged beyond repair. some have already been demolished. rebuilding a city so old and historic will be hard to come up with how they want their 'new city' to look. i'm guessing they'll want much the same only all buildings fully built to withstand big quakes. these were not. :( there are plenty of pix online to see what has/is coming down around the central city. i'm guessing it will take at least a decade to rebuild all the homes/buildings to the right standards and repair/replace the infrastructure of the water/waste water systems around the area. gonna take a long long time. :( j.

"Alice in PA" wrote ... Last January, my DH and I took a cruise around NZ and docked at Christchurch. We spent hours roaming around the city center, the cathedral, the Botanical Gardens, etc. The church was behind scaffolding and netting for repairs while we were there. I wonder how it held up? I just can't believe some of the photos of the damage, especially the large cracks and upheavals in the roads!

I hope the aftershocks stop soon; they can be really hard on the nerves. BTDT!