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March 2, 2011 + Over the Edge

Earthquake Causes Tragedy in

Southern New Zealand

Earthquake hits the town of Christchurch New Zealand

HANNA PETERSEN
NEWS EDITOR

Destruction in New Zealand

A 6.3 magnitude Earthquake has hit the southern New Zealand town of Christchurch. The
death toll is hovering around 75 and 300 people are assumed missing. The number of people
trapped in buildings or under rubble is unknown.

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has said of the earthquake, “it’s just a scene of utter
destruction. This may be New Zealand’s darkest day.” The earthquake first hit 12:51 pm local
time on a busy Tuesday. Rescue crews have pulled 120 people out alive from the debris.
The rescue workers focused their attentions on six downtown sites where many people
were trapped including a number of visiting Japanese students. Many foreign South Asian
students were studying in a language school located in an office building that toppled in the
earthquake, leaving their families unsure about their survival. The building in question also
housed a local TV station and 15 of its employees are unaccounted for. More people may still
be trapped beneath the rubble and debris throughout the city. Rescue crews now have to
prioritize zones where they believe there is a higher chance of survivability.

After the earthquake unexpectedly hit the town, an evacuation was ordered as the aftershocks

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and damages to essential infrastructure has made the city more hazardous. The spire of the
city’s iconic downtown Christchurch cathedral has collapsed into the centre city square. The
earthquake has also cause 30-million tones of ice to break off the Tasman glacier. It’s the
biggest glacier in New Zealand and about 200-kilometres from Christchurch.

Google’s program Person Finder has been launched to help the missing. The program was
built by Google engineers in response to January 2010’s earthquake in Haiti. The service
allows people to post information on whether a person is safe, missing, or injured. It also
allows for someone to search information on a missing person across other registries. The
service has been used in the China, Chile, and in the Pakistan floods.

Police in Christchurch have also imposed a nighttime curfew for residents still in the city
to keep people away from the most dangerous areas of the city. The city experienced a
previous earthquake last September and some of the devastation is being attributed to the
slight infrastructure damage caused by the previous earthquake.

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