New Zealand Earthquake: A First-Hand Report | Halogen TV

New Zealand Earthquake: A First-Hand Report

By Cara Davis | about 23 hours ago

Share24

The people of Christchurch, New Zealand, are beginning to clean up after a massive 6.3 earthquake struck yesterday, leaving 65 dead.
The following is an update from American Kate Cremisino, a freelance writer and teacher who recently moved to Canterbury, New Zealand. She and her husband, Noah, experienced last year’s September quake and offered the following updates to her friends and family following yesterday’s disaster:

Hi. Update; phones only working locally. We are slowly getting ppls texts but can’t respond. It’s nearly 5am and I’m able to get some Internet on my mobile first time since quake. We’re up bc of continuall aftershocks. Haven’t seen ANY footage of anywhere but our own neighborhood, but we hear it’s bad. You’ve seen more news than us. We get radio though. Just havent seen the fallen buildings/bridges, etc. Here is an update I tried to post on FB but it won’t work. If it didn’t post, please someone post it for me. Thank you!!!

Wow. Thank you everyone for your prayers and concern. It’s 4:12am and the aftershocks are about every 10-30 minutes, so little sleep tonight. But it looks like my phone can finally get thru to internet connection due to less traffic trying to use it right now. Wow, Miserable situation here for us and literally everyone. Too much to say. So much loss of property, businesses, lives. This will cripple the city. Ppl still trapped. I’ll be posting photos and footage when we can, along with a lot more details. We could use help today (wednesday) shoveling mud off driveway, walkways and in front off house. Bring a shovel and wheelbarrow. We also need help moving the brick wall and chimney that crumbled. We lost alot of kitchen gear. Entire fridge & pantry on floor. Noahs computers crashed to the ground, but they look ok, havent had chance to turn on yet due to power out. Carport about to fall down. Food and water uncertain in the coming days, as everything closed.. Emergency services will surely come to the rescue there… Though might have to drive out of city to get showers, fresh water, food from friends. Limited mobile phone service. Might have to move out of house, as it’s shifted. Thanks for your support during this time. The city needs your prayers. Pray for the young parents, the children, the eldeely, the ppl who’ve lost ppl. I was at the school down the road when it happened. Chaotic. All kids crying. Water flooding all over school. Traumitizing. (soory, trying to tell slot bc service will surely be down tomorrow). It’s definitely strange to be in a city wide catastrophy, where everyone needs help, where you can see fire smoke on the horizon, where the skyline is dusty from falling buildings, where birds fill the air after each quake, where sirens are constantly going and military planes circle above…

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY:~

Here’s what’s being done:

• Google set up a Crisis Response Page following the earthquake.
• A search-and-rescue team has been sent from the U.S. to New Zealand to help in the quake’s aftermath.

• The Salvation Army in New Zealand is responding. You can donate to their efforts here.

Cremisino also said road and building repair people are greatly needed in the region, as they still hadn’t been repaired from the September quake.

Interested in becoming a first responder to disaster events? Here are a number of organizations that are looking for emergency relief volunteers to respond to events across the globe.

via halogentv.com