It gets worse by the day!

The body count is climbing, as expected, but it's the survivors that are the real worry. The amount of shock experienced by the victims is beginning to really show now, as we go into day 5 after the disaster. The whole city rests on a pile of wet sand which sinks each time there is anoither tremor. There are continuing after shocks - one every few minutes, some greater than others - which have reduced morale to a very low ebb. No one is sleeping. Many have not had washing facilities for the past 5 days and water is really difficult to obtain. It's not a lack of supply, but the difficulty in reaching it with smashed roads and liquifaction preventing car movment.

Toilets are non- existent and people are having to use their garden - if they have one, or a bucket with lime, if they can find it. How anyone with little children is coping I really don't know. I suspect they were the first group to leave the city. After their September experience, I suggest no one with a young family would stay any longer than necessary. Just pack valuables into the car and be prepared for a long drive!

The attached photo was taken by a friend who works in Hurinui - 100k's north of Christchurch, the day after the quake. You can see the lines of cars forming at the petrol station. It's in the middle of nowhere, so you can imagine the scale of the exodus.

The privatization of local bodies in the 1990's is really coming home to roost - with a vengance. They have no mechanical or heavy lifting infrastructure anymore. It's all by contractor. The city's security has been completely compromised by the greed of a few.

What really gets my goat is the BS coming from the parliamentarians. The city is smashed beyong repair - even the Chamber of Commerce CEO has placed a figure of $20 BILLION on reconstruction,which is simply beyond the capacity of 4 million people to fund. It must be at least 25% of our current GDP. Couple this with the fact that with every earth movement there is going to be further liquifaction, and it makes the whole city an uninsurable risk!

But what really concerns me is that the insurers are beginning to discover many of the building consents issued over the past 50 years, should never have been approved. Houses were built on low lying sandy areas that had been beaches in the distant past. Even a report published in the 1920's clearly stated that Christchurch should never be built on. It was too swampy. Now the chickens have really come home to roost! If, as I suspect, the insurers refuse to cover a significant number of dwellings that have been fraudulently sited on unsuitable land, life is going to get really tough for at least 5,000 home owners. Thousands have already left the city, with whole blocks of houses being abandoned - possessions and all. People are leaving the city in droves and apparently are intending never to return. Nelson and Blenheim (at the top the of the South Island) have been inundated with refugees. Many others have moved to the North Island. The big supermarket chains in the city are asking their staff to return to work so that they can supply the remaining residents, but it looks as though most of their staff have left. I suspect the army will be put into the supermarkets to keep them going. I can imagine the recruiting sergeant asking the new recruit, what trade he would like to enter. 'Shopkeeper' !

The parliamentarians are in grave danger of seriously misleading the public into a false sense of security. They have followed the tried and tested strategy of lying and denying. But this time, with the evidence firmly at hand, for all to see, anyone that claims the city can and will be rebuilt, is deluding themselves.

www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/forum/index.php