Journal: Earthquake Day 3.
Christchurch is a mess, seen especially from the air. Spent some of yesterday refreshing my memory of "liquefaction". All of Christchurch  and the greater area have many patches of liquefaction, both big and small.
Earthquakes and tremors do not mix well with liquefaction. Experts say liquefaction can be overcome, even with constructing large buildings, but they are loath to guarantee success in an earthquake prone area.

Early this, morning the dreadful figures were deaths 103 and missing 226. Of the missing, this figure is expected to drop somewhat.

Many older residents and those with children are reported to be leaving the city for relatives and friends, and a few, for second homes. The roads are crowded, gasoline is scarce but diesel is freely available. Shell the main distributer are kept busy.

The NZ search and rescue teams are doing a wonderful job along with those teams from Australia and Japan. other teams also from Taiwan, Singapore and the USA. USA team with heavy lifting equipment, I believe. The 2 British teams are arriving today. These are specialist teams, completely self contained, down to food, water and accommodation. They were used in the Haiti earthquake fiasco.

A convention comprising of doctors, surgeons and specialists from Australia were present in Christchurch. They all dug in, helping where needed, along with many other medical people here on holiday in the city.

Amputation.
One most gripping story was from an ambulance medic with an ambulance and on his own arriving at a fallen building to find 2 men trapped by the legs under a beam of the fallen building. A surgeon turned up and managed to severe both legs of one man to release him. the other man died  of blood loss and trauma before he could be saved, this as related by the medic. The medic and ambulance made it to the nearest hospital  with his patient over ruptured roads, blocked roads to the nearest hospital. This incident and more was recorded by the medic after his shift was finished and posted as an email to 1ZM radio station. I heard the email read out. It reminded me of WW2 incidents when I was a small boy, ear glued to the radio or reading the daily paper back in the UK.

Yesterday, the saddest tale I saw of many tales was the statistics shown on TV, at the bottom of the list, a baby of 5 months and another of 9 weeks,  both casualties of the earthquake. What of the parent(s), who knows? I remember I immediately thought of the Ian and Vicky and the twins and then of Tahlia and Jaeden. I felt so sad for the families of those 2 little one.

Finally, the 5 major banks in NZ have each pledged one million dollars to the Christchurch (Red Cross) fund. Australia has pledged $5 million dollars

Fonterra has supplied 1 million litres of drinking water and possibly up to 1 million dollars subject to their owners, the dairy farmers of NZ.

That is all for today, I feel washed out. My grammar and spelling is going to pot. Maybe more tomorrow.