Major aftershock of September quake strikes New Zealand
Episcopal News Service. February 22, 2011 [022211-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Residents of Christchurch, New Zealand's second-largest city, are searching through the rubble left by a magnitude-6.3 earthquake that struck on Feb. 22 just before 1 p.m. local time, killing at least 65 people and damaging many buildings, including the Anglican cathedral.
It was the second time in five months that Christchurch has been rocked by a major earthquake.
The Very Rev. Peter Beck, dean of Christchurch Cathedral, told the British Broadcasting Corp.'s 5 Live Radio program that he managed to escape his cathedral office and helped others as well. The offices were not badly damaged but "the tower has collapsed and some of the walls have collapsed and we're pretty fearful there may be some people underneath that."
"We got all the people out that we could, but there are piles of rubble, especially where the tower has collapsed. We don't know whether there were people in the tower at the time, but I'm fairly fearful of that," Beck said. He added that "there's a huge amount of dust, it's like a fog inside there."
One television video reportedly showed a person clinging to a window in the cathedral's tower.
The BBC program, with accompanying video of the cathedral and other damage, is here. A summary of the BBC interview is on the Anglican Communion News Service here.
Beck told the New Zealand Herald that the temblor caused part of the cathedral roof to cave in and collapsed the tower.
"It is devastating about the cathedral but the most important thing at the moment is not the buildings, it's the people, and we've got to reach out to each other here in Christchurch and Canterbury and do what we can to deal with those who are wounded, those who have been killed and their families," Beck told the Herald.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote to Beck Feb. 22 saying that Episcopalians "are horrified to hear of the death and damage in this latest temblor."
"Please know of our prayers for comfort and safety of the survivors, healing for the injured, and peace at the last for those who have died," she continued. "May you all know yourselves held in the palm of God’s hand in the midst of this chaos."
Prayers were said Feb 22 for New Zealand during the noon Eucharist at the Episcopal Church Center in New York.
Other churches, including St John's Anglican Church in Latimer Square about 300 meters from the cathedral, were damaged or destroyed. St. John's was reportedly badly damaged, with a wall caved in, adding to severe damage from last year's earthquake. Its website still shows photos of that damage.
Archbishops David Moxon, Brown Turei and Winston Halapua, and Standing Committee of the General Synod/te Hinota Whanui of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia were meeting in Rotorua, New Zealand, about 140 miles southeast of Auckland on the country's north island when they received news of the earthquake.
"We, along with so many other people in this country, immediately turned to prayer for all those who are so seriously affected," they said in part in a statement posted on the Anglican Communion News Service website.
"We have also contacted our wider Anglican Communion around the world and asked them to pray with us. We reach out in this prayer to the people of the city of Christchurch and the wider Canterbury region, asking the God of all the earth to give everyone the strength and endurance that they need to survive and to recover."
Seismic experts classified the Feb. 22 quake, which struck at 6:51 p.m. Feb. 21 EST, as part of a continuing "aftershock sequence" of the Sept. 3 magnitude-7.0 quake that struck outside of Christchurch. The U.S. Geological Survey said that this quake did not happen along the same fault as the September temblor. The USGS noted that there have been numerous aftershocks since September, but this one was the largest to date, more that half a magnitude unit larger than the previous largest aftershock.
The shaking intensity in Christchurch was much stronger than in the September quake, according to a report from GeoNet, a New Zealand geological hazard monitoring system. The quake was 5 kilometers below the surface and very close to the city, the USGS said. The September quake occurred at about the same depth, but its epicenter was 30 miles west of Christchurch.
The recent temblor was followed by at least 12 more aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 4.0 to 5.6. Those aftershocks are shown here in an USGS list of quakes worldwide.
The New York Times reported that the death toll in the city of 400,000 is expected to rise. Times reporters quoted Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker predicting that the death toll would be significant.
"It's not going to be good news, and we need to steel ourselves to understand that," he said.
Food and drinking water were being brought into the city overnight, according to news reports. Christchurch International Airport has been closed since shortly after the quake but messages from its Twitter feed posted on its website said it hopes to reopen to domestic flights Feb. 23.
Prime Minister John Key called it New Zealand's "darkest day," and said that "people are just sitting on the side of the road, their heads in their hands. This is a community that is absolutely in agony."
Elsewhere in New Zealand, the Associated Press said, the earthquake dislodged 30 million tons of ice from the Tasman Glacier in the Southern Alps that slide into a lake, creating waves up to 11 feet high.
3News, a private New Zealand television station, said that the trust set up to support victims of the recent Pike River mine disaster will no longer accept donations in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake. Pike River Disaster Relief Trust chairman and Greymouth Mayor Tony Kokshoorn asked people to donate to the Red Cross' earthquake-relief efforts instead. More than 20,000 people have donated just more that $7 million to help the families of the 29 miners who were killed in a massive underground gas explosion in November.
At least two people had been rescued from Christchurch cathedral, according to a report on the New Zealand news website Stuff. The site reported that witnesses heard screaming coming from the cathedral after the quake.
An unnamed emergency services worker told The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald's website, that he went into the cathedral twice in 10 minutes and shouted "Anybody there?"
"Silence there, there was no replies .... I believe there's nobody in there, and if there is they're probably unconscious or passed away," he said.
Damage to the cathedral can be seen here along with four other views of the quake's aftermath at the church.
The cathedral was spared major damage in the September quake because of a multi-million dollar strengthening project undertaken a few years ago, largely financed by the Christchurch ratepayers but ongoing aftershocks and the risk of falling debris kept the cathedral off-limits until Sept. 22.
On Oct. 19, two stoneworkers were suspended on a platform outside the cathedral inspecting a stone cross on the southern gable when a magnitude-5.0 aftershock struck, according to a report here. Jon Hare hung on to the stone cross as it swayed back and forth, while Ben West gripped the stone gable.
A magnitude-4.9 aftershock on Dec. 26 damaged stained-glass windows in the cathedral's south transept and workers were removing the window, according to the cathedral website. The building was open for visitors and services were being run on their regular schedule.
The cathedral, built more than 150 years ago, attracts up to 700,000 tourists each year, according to the Christchurch and Canterbury online visitor center. In earlier days, its tower dominated the city's skyline, the cathedral's website says, and was modeled on the idea of a city built around a central cathedral and college, following the English model of Christ Church, Oxford.
In the aftermath of the September temblor, Diocese of Christchurch Bishop Victoria Matthews challenged Anglicans there to raise $100,000 for earthquake relief in Haiti in thanksgiving that no one was killed in the quake. The magnitude-7 Jan. 12 Haiti quake killed 250,000 and 300,000 people. To date, only a small percentage of the rubble has been cleared away and a million people still live in makeshift camps. In the end, the diocese raised just more than US$120,000, which was disbursed via several major aid agencies.