New Zealand Anglicans begin to pick up the pieces
Episcopal News Service. February 23, 2011 [022311-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Diocese of Christchurch Bishop Victoria Matthews says that in the New Zealand city that is reeling from a magnitude-6.3 earthquake that struck on Feb. 22 just before 1 p.m. local time there "are high, high levels of anxiety, and a sense of despair."
Speaking to Anglican Taonga, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia's news service, Matthews said that "there are still many people who have been unable to make contact with members of their family and with their closest friends."
In an official statement, Matthews said, "I join you in giving thanks for the extraordinary work done by the emergency workers. This even more devastating earthquake calls us to reach out into the community and make sure no one is overlooked. In short, be calm, be sensible, be compassionate, be a good neighbor. Pray for confidence that God will see us through."
The confirmed death toll stands at 71, but it is expected to rise. For instance, the Very Rev. Peter Beck, dean of Christchurch Cathedral, told Anglican Taonga that when search and rescue teams enter the landmark cathedral, he thinks they'll find victims. The cathedral's spire collapsed during the quake. The cathedral has long been a major tourist attraction and visitors were in building when the quake hit.
"We are very fearful," he said, "that there are some people under that rubble."
The cathedral's website said as many as 20 people may still be trapped in the ruins. The building is one of about six "sites of extreme concern around the city where many are believed to still be trapped," according to information on the cathedra's homepage.
All nine cathedral staff are safe. One of the cathedral's volunteers was admitted to hospital with injuries, but Beck said he thinks all the volunteers are all right.
Damage to the cathedral can be seen here, along with four other views of the quake's aftermath at the church. Photos of the cathedral before and after the quake are here.
The New York Times reported Feb. 24 that 120 people had been pulled out of debris in the quake area. The New Zealand Herald website said that no more survivors had been pulled out of the rubble overnight, with the last person rescued alive at 3 p.m. Feb. 23. Some survivors have reportedly had to have limbs amputated in order to escape.
Police have taken over the task of collating lists of those missing since the Christchurch earthquake, with a figure of 300 just "speculation," Defense Minister Carter said, according to the Herald.
Defense Minister John Carter said 431 patients had gone through city emergency rooms since the earthquake.
At one point on Feb. 23, the Time reported, emergency workers were withdrawn from a part of central Christchurch amid concerns that the 26-story Hotel Grand Chancellor, one of the city's tallest buildings, could collapse. Officials cleared a two-block zone around the hotel, suspending search and rescue operations in some of the city's most badly damaged buildings. The Canterbury Television headquarters -- where as many as 100 people reportedly may be trapped -- was among them.
Eighty percent of the city is without running water, according to the Herald, and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said residents should treat all water as contaminated and boil it before use. Power has reportedly been restored to 60 percent of the city.
This image, apparently taken just after the quake hit, has been circulating on the social media site Twitter.
Episcopal Relief & Development, which typically responds to emergencies in developing countries, said its prayers were with the people of Christchurch. "Please continue to pray for the families of the deceased, those who are injured or missing and the rescue teams who are putting themselves at risk to save others," the agency said in a posting on its website.
It was the second time in five months that Christchurch has been rocked by a major earthquake. In the aftermath of the Sept. 3 magnitude-7.0 quake that struck 30 miles west of Christchurch, Bishop Matthews said, "there was a sense of pervasive hope." No one was killed in that quake.
The bishop told Radio New Zealand that she was in a public building three blocks from the diocesan offices when the quake hit.
"We went under the table very quickly. There was a lot of flying glass," she said. "When we could get out, we realized the building across the street, part of the Christchurch Club, had completely come down. My first thought was for my staff."
Matthews went to the center after the shaking stopped and all 14 diocesan staff members made their way to safety from the diocese's multi-level Anglican Center in the city's central business district.
The building is cordoned off and, for the meantime, Matthews has set up an emergency office in the hall of the Anglican Parish of St Barnabas in Fendalton, just to the northwest of Christchurch.
On the evening of Feb. 23 Matthews was at the tent city set up in Hagley Park, the largest open space in Christchurch. She said she watched and talked with people as hundreds inched forward, in the rain, towards shelter. Hagley Park is due to be the site of an open-air ecumenical service in this weekend, Anglican Taonga reported.
Matthews' home sustained much greater damage than in the September quake, Anglican Taonga reported. Matthews told Radio New Zealand that assessors had put the cost of damage caused by the earlier quake at NZ$200,000. "I would say it's now five to 10 times more damage," she said. "I have seen it and I don't think I will be sleeping in it tonight."
The bishop told the news service that one of her top priorities now is to find a church "preferably with running water" that is safe, and which can become the nerve center for a diocesan relief and pastoral effort.
"I want to open that up 24/7 as place where people can come and pray and receive pastoral care – and a place which clergy can use as a base to go out into the highways and byways to offer pastoral care," she said.
The news service reported that Matthews is looking for four safe churches -- in the north, southeast and west -- to operate as round-the-clock public pastoral care and prayer centers. "The churches would need to be safe, with toilets, tea and coffee facilities, and preferably have some willing volunteers on hand," Anglican Taonga reported.
After the quake Matthews reportedly sent a short email to Diocese of Edmonton Bishop Jane Alexander, her successor in the Alberta, Canada, diocese, saying that she and her staff were safe.
Matthews left the Edmonton diocese in 2008 after 10 years as bishop there after she was elected to Christchurch.
Alexander said that the Canadian diocese would collect donations to aid Anglicans in New Zealand.
The extent of damage to Anglican churches is not yet know, the news service said, "but it will be widespread." Matthews said in the Radio New Zealand interview that St John's Anglican Church in Latimer Square about 300 meters from the cathedral, "sustained much, much more damage" beyond that done in the September quake. "It's now perhaps not repairable," she told the radio network.
She suggested that "accumulating weakening" by the September quake and subsequent aftershocks, including a magnitude-4.9 temblor on Dec. 26, may be part of the reason for the extensive damage wrought by this quake, which was classified as yet another in that aftershock sequence.
"Obviously, something's been going on every time it's been shaken to the core," Matthews said about St. John's.
Archbishop David Moxon, one of the province's three co-presiding bishops, was planning to fly into Christchurch evening of Feb. 24 to offer "'low-key' support where he can, and to offer ministry as a priest, as Bishop Victoria needs," Anglican Taonga said.
Planning is also underway to set up a national Anglican appeal for any needs identified by the Diocese of Christchurch and Te Wai Pounamu hui amorangi, the diocese that encompasses New Zealand's South Island and some smaller adjacent islands on which live some 15,000 Maori Anglicans.
Moxon and Archbishops Brown Turei and Winston Halapua, and the standing committee of the General Synod/te Hinota Whanui 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.