IRISH VISITORS to earthquake-stricken Christchurch have spoken of the moments they realised the city was being struck by a massive aftershock to last September’s quake.
Pat Ford, who had been travelling in the region visiting his son who lives in the South Island’s largest city, told TheJournal.ie of the “eerie ” feeling of seeing streets and houses crumble just minutes after he had stood inside them.
“The place just rocked,” Ford said. “We were sitting in my son’s house, about two kilometres from the city centre… we didn’t know what was happening for a few seconds, then realised it was something bad.
“I won’t say we were forewarned from September,” he added, “but there had been aftershocks… but they totally rocked the house.”
Ford’s son Conor is employed full-time in New Zealand as an electrician with Orion, the operator of the country’s electricity grid, and had been largely occupied in the past few months by dealing with repair work following the original 7.5-magnitude quake in September.
“Luckily his house is timber, and there wasn’t too much damage,” Ford said, “but his garage was concrete, and it’s totally destroyed.”
Most roads now had deep crevices yards deep, which had begun to fill up with a “grey silt” which made trying to leave the city quite difficult – and upsetting the plans of Ford and other visitors, who were now trying to cut short their planned visits to New Zealand.
Ford and his wife had had to arrive in New Zealand early, he added, after their stay in Queensland was brought to a halt by Cyclone Yasi – but their plans to remain in New Zealand until March 15 were now, like the city itself, in tatters.
Ireland’s consul in Auckland, meanwhile, has said his offices have received no reports of any Irish citizens being missing following last night’s earthquake in the city of Christchurch.
Rodney Walshe told TheJournal.ie, however, that Christchurch was a “broken city” which was only just beginning to overcome the damage of the earthquake in September before last night’s aftershock claimed the lives of at least 65.
Where Irish people had been described as “missing”, Walshe said, this was because they hadn’t been able to make contact with friends or family – which was understandable given the damage to the country’s telecoms infrastructure as a result of the quake, which hit shortly before midnight Irish time last night.
In cases where concerns had been raised about the welfare of Irish people, the consulate had been able to contact the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Christchurch and ultimately vouch for their safety.
Though Walshe said he could not be sure that no Irish were among those missing, he was confident that contact could be made with anyone over whom concerns had been raised.
“In the meantime we have got, through the Irish community there, a network of people using texts and other messages so that if anyone should look for help [from the consulate], they’ll be able to come back and talk to us,” Walshe said.
Rescue efforts in the city have continued, as workers try to rescue people trapped underneath any rubble before attention moves towards the recovery of dead bodies.
Survivors of the earthquake are slowly beginning to evacuate the city in order to free up resources for the rescue efforts, Walshe added.
Some of those confirmed dead so far, local reports indicated, had died after being unable to cope with the loss of trapped limbs which had been amputated by emergency services in order to free them.
Anyone with concerns regarding Irish citizens in Christchurch can contact a special helpline at (01) 4180222, or log their details at the Department’s travel registration system.
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