New Zealand Quake Victims without Water and Power as Toll Rises

New Zealand Quake Victims without Water and Power as Toll Rises

February 25, 2011

AP - The neighborhood's toilet is a portable one out on Keller Street. The water supply is cut, making showers and clean laundry distant dreams. Resident stay fresh with bottles of hand sanitizer, and they're running low.

"Don't stand too close to anyone," Judy Prime said with a chuckle as she took a break from shoveling huge piles of wet sludge out of her garage in the shattered Christchurch suburb of Avonside.

The days since Tuesday's massive earthquake rumbled through Christchurch, killing at least 123 and toppling buildings, have brought a level of misery unusual for the residents of this modern city of 350,000. Some 226 people remain missing, said Police Superintendent David Cliff.

Water and power supplies to thousands have been cut, and many have been forced to sleep in their cars or tents as their unstable houses sway with the relentless aftershocks.

Many Christchurch residents first started getting used to some deprivation five months ago, when an earlier quake struck the city. Now, life is even worse.

Tuesday's temblor brought a fresh surge of water up through cracks in the yards of Prime and her neighbors along Keller Street. Most houses on the street suffered damage, and many will need to be demolished.

Prime, 66, has spent each night sleeping on a rubber mat under the dining room table, worried that aftershocks will send parts of her home crashing down. Every evening, she and her neighbors gather in her back yard to share beers and barbecue the meat from her freezer — still good, because it was encased in thick ice when the power went out.

"We've become a family, you know?" she said. "What one hasn't got, the other has."

Across the road, Christmas lights adorn the portable toilet that has stood outside Paul Stokes' house since the September quake knocked out the sewage line. Officials still hadn't gotten around to fixing the pipes from that disaster when Tuesday's temblor hit.

"Only Christmas lights I put up this year — it's really handy in the middle of the night," said Stokes, who was wearing a T-shirt that said "Tested to 7.1" — a reference to the magnitude of the September quake.

Mayor Bob Parker said 780 portable toilets have been installed throughout the city, and hundreds more are on their way. But many residents have resorted to digging holes in their gardens to take care of business. For those on Keller Street, the Stokes' toilet is a blessing.

Inside their home, Stokes' wife Yvonne sat by a wood stove, warming up from the chilly drizzle outside. Thursday was the first night since the quake that she slept — while sitting up in a chair in the living room. The ceiling in her bedroom is sagging, the walls are cracked and she worries the roof might cave. The whole house will have to be destroyed, she said.

Thursday also marked the first day she'd managed to eat since the disaster; the family cooked up sausages and mashed potatoes on a gas stove.

She clutched the hand of her sister-in-law, Christine Lagan, and cried as the two sat side by side. Lagan took the family's laundry back to her house outside Christchurch on Thursday and returned with fresh clothes — giving the family a small measure of dignity amidst the dismal conditions.

"We go to the toilet and can't even flush," Yvonne said, tears running down her face. "We are in tatters."

Still, Yvonne said neighbors were keeping each other sane by banding together. Neighbors were dropping off meat pies, chocolate and bottles of water to those in need, and the couple who runs a nearby corner store was giving away any food they could spare.

"We're all looking after each other," she said.

Across the road, she embraced a weeping 71-year-old Wyn Tinnion, who said she has not been able to stop crying since the quake sent nearly everything she owned crashing to the floor.

"You just don't know what to do — at least we're alive," Tinnion said, burying her face into Yvonne's shoulder.

"At least we've got each other," Yvonne added, giving her a squeeze.

Tinnion and her 75-year-old husband Kelvin have been surviving on donated water and cooking on a gas stove lent by a neighbor. Tinnion was too scared to lock herself in any of the city's portable toilets, so she has been using a bucket instead. Her husband has the unenviable task of emptying it for her.

At night, the couple uses flashlights and candles to see around their house. They whittle away the hours listening to their battery-operated radio.

The walls are cracked, and her garage is flooded with murky water and mud. She hasn't changed her clothes since Tuesday, and her face crumpled again as she looked down at her nails, ringed with purple residue from the blueberries she scrounged from her freezer.

"I'm so filthy. I haven't had a wash since last Tuesday," she said, eyes welling with tears.

"Hey," Yvonne said gently, slipping an arm around her friend. "I don't look like a beauty queen."

For a moment, Tinnion's eyes cleared — and the two women began to laugh.

Other Christchurch earthquake videos from New Zealand Herald

Domestic Violence Rages in NZ Quake Aftermath

February 26, 2011

AFP - With nerves frayed by months of tremors that peaked in a horrifying earthquake this week, Christchurch residents are lashing out against those they need the most.

Police said domestic violence surged by 50 percent after a major tremor rocked New Zealand's second city last September, the prelude to Tuesday's quake that left at least 123 dead and destroyed parts of the city centre.

Just a day into the latest disaster, police commander Dave Cliff said authorities had seen another surge in family assaults, with many homeless or without power and water, and as some turned to alcohol to cope.

"The stress and trauma of Tuesday's earthquake is understandably taking its toll, and the continual aftershocks are exacerbating the tiredness and emotional fatigue," said Cliff.

"However family violence is not okay under any circumstances and it is important that situations are not allowed to escalate."

Many in Christchurch have been on edge since the September 4 quake which caused massive damage but no loss of life, with more than 5,000 aftershocks ravaging the city of 390,000 -- New Zealand's second largest.

There was a spike in suicides and stress-related conditions after the first quake, and David Meates, the region's health director, said Tuesday's disaster "has certainly got most people very, very fragile, very anxious".

"In these sorts of situations there are enormous pressures and strains on families, relationships, people's livelihoods are now at stake," Meates told AFP.

"Sometimes the way that it's expressed, people are a lot (closer to) their breaking point and sometimes some of the reactions can be quite out of character. Certainly domestic violence is something that becomes more obvious."

Already a major problem in New Zealand, with tens of thousands of incidents reported each year, one local study showed the incidence of domestic abuse could triple during natural disasters. Massey University researcher Ros Houghton has found events such as floods and snowstorms significantly increased the intensity and frequency of abuse in rocky relationships.

"People lose a sense of stability and security and there's a kind of anger that comes and you don't know where to put it, you don't know where to direct it, and it's often that it gets directed inside and against those you love," said Peter Beck, dean of Christchurch's Anglican Cathedral.

"Already we have people who've been made redundant, so there's anxiety not only about your homes and your loved ones. Some people have already been getting this double-whammy of maybe losing their job."

Along with looting, drunken disorder was also on the rise, according to police. One in six New Zealand adults are estimated to have potentially dangerous drinking habits, according to the health department.

Officials had already been bracing for deeper traumas to emerge around June from the September quake, and Meates said they were now looking at a much more acute response compounded by the mass loss of life in the tight-knit community.

Red Cross officer David Neal said the disaster --

"The biggest we've dealt with in recent memory" -- would hit not only the people of Christchurch, but New Zealand as a nation.

"Everybody in New Zealand is hurting because of what's happened here in Christchurch," said Neil.

"I think it's going to be far-reaching and long lasting. This is something that everybody will have some sort of contact with, or some sort of knowledge of somebody that's been affected in some way right across the country."Beck agrees.

"Nothing will be the same, nothing can be the same for any of us here after this. Our lives are changed because of this, of course they are," he said.

"But that doesn't mean as we move on that we don't grow from this. Out of this pain and out of this tragedy we will grow again.

"Life is stronger than death. Love is stronger than hate."