It looks like the seismologists have been getting some useful study out of our earthquakes. I've been looking forward to seeing the outcomes of their research.
First, a video of a local university geologist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTvFDSpmh3A And here is a news article from today's paper which seems to provide a bit of extra detail as to why we had unusually strong shaking. <http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4782133/Christchurch-earthquake-data-tracks-ill-fated-moment> There was a big memorial service in Hagley Park today which we attended. It was a little long and a bit preachy but it was well worth going to. I was a bit surprised that Julia Gillard didn't speak after coming all that way. At the beginning of the ceremony they played a 15-minute film of scenes from the CBD but I've only found a short clip so far. The opening scene is the street I was walking on at the time, but I was a few blocks further south from what they show (they are travelling north, towards the river). http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/videos/4784380 Every time the guys from Urban Search & Rescue, Civil Defence or the Fire Service were seen or mentioned there was a round of enthusiastic applause from the crowd. They really do have a huge amount of respect for the hard work they've done at great risk to themselves. The original plan was to allow people to walk a prescribed route through the CBD after the memorial but it turned out to be impractical due to safety concerns. The toughest part of the service for me was a short film which showed how people from around the country have rallied to support us. That makes me far more emotional than seeing the damaged buildings. While I'm at it I should throw in an update on my own situation. Things are settling down to a "new normal" now. We even had a new bookshelf delivered on Monday morning that we'd ordered maybe 6 weeks ago. We are still having to boil all water and will continue to do so for the next couple of weeks at least. The city council are installing equipment to start chlorinating our water supply as the damage to our sewer system will take years to fully repair. The problem is that the sewage is leaching into the ground where our drinking water comes from. We have some of the best tap water in the world here and it normally does not need to be treated at all. Something I'm bitterly reminded of every time I travel :) The contamination is real; a number of people have fallen ill after simply brushing their teeth using the tap water out of old habit. It's so easy to do accidentally. The authorities are surprised that there hasn't been a big outbreak of disease so it's good to hear that everyone's been listening to the advice of health authorities. Aside from the water situation all the services are working at my place. We have electricity and the water pressure is high enough that we can shower... while keeping the mouth well and truly shut due to the contamination I just mentioned. Due to the state of the sewers we are only flushing our toilet when necessary. I usually "water the garden". The company I work for have set up in temporary premises. We are using a small amount of spare office space that is owned by one of our customers. It's in a more industrial area so my lunchtime walks are going to be much less interesting but I can make it to a mall if I'm quick. We have the place for a couple of months and will see how the situation develops. Aside from that, life goes on. The aftershocks are continuing with a 3.8 a few hours ago. We aren't getting many big ones now. They don't really bother me anymore but sometimes I'll jump in surprise when I hear the noise. A colleague of mine put together a website while we were off work to showcase a bit of kiwi ingenuity and give people a light-hearted way to take their minds off the disaster. It's called "Show Us Your Long Drop" - people can upload photos of the temporary toilets they built in their gardens after being unable to use their regular ones. http://www.showusyourlongdrop.co.nz/ I avoided posting this earlier because it went viral through Facebook last week and crashed the server due to the inundation of visitors. He called me in to try and keep the server running and we were struggling to say the least! We eventually had to set up a hosting account overseas to hold the images as he hit his 50Gb international traffic limit within about 2 days (mostly from Australia after he did a couple of radio interviews). Excess traffic is $1/Gb on his plan so we had to do something pretty quickly. After the site went crazy it started to consume him. All chance of getting any real work done was gone. In addition to the media attention he was contacted by sponsors wanting to give prizes (I sponsored a couple of prizes as well). He's planning a calendar and possibly a book, with proceeds going to charity. Right I'd better get to bed... Cheers, Dave -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
