Day 219 Wednesday, March 9th. Earthquake in Christchurch stories.

We meet three young German men in a coffee shop (in Greymouth, and so on the opposite side of the south island from Christchurch) who have lived in NZ for 5 yrs. and have started their own meat processing and retail business in Christchurch. (German sausages etc I suppose.) One fellow’s family lives in a house just inside what is now the red (or no-go) zone. He was downtown Christchurch in a restaurant at the time- the restaurant didn’t collapse but has since been condemned. His own house didn’t fall down but is likely condemned. (I have read in the newspapers here that 10,000 houses will be condemned and that much of the land will not be built on again since the liquefaction of the soil is too great.) Their business is also inside the red zone and one of the other men was on a 12’ scaffold at the time of the ‘quake but luckily wasn’t hurt.
They were allowed back into the Red Zone but only after lengthy petitions and then with two escort engineers and two safety personnel. They were given 30 minutes to assess damage and to collect any personal stuff that could be rescued.
They told us that the army is in control and even have tanks there. (A sign of strength I suppose, I don’t know what other use they could be.) Their descriptions of the actual event and the injured and frightened people running everywhere were heartfelt and difficult to listen to. They don’t expect downtown Christchurch to open again this year. They told me that everyone was helping one another-even previous business competitors were coming together to help one another get going again. The young man who seemed to own the business said that there were going to be 10’s of thousands of contractors coming into Christchurch to help with the clean-up, demolition and re-building and that they would all need food and drink so he was hoping to be able to make use of that to get his business up and running again. One man is going around selling coffees for $5 from a mobile kitchen and giving away coffees to the police, army and ambulance people.