Our Friends in New Zealand

[Paul Taylor]

I know we have a few flying friends in New Zealand.

Keep them in yours thoughts and prayers.

Major Earth Quake in New Zealand kills at least 65, traps more.

[Randy Powell]

Yea, I heard that on the news. Hope those folks are doing well. I remember the quake in Silmar, California in 1971 vividly. Not a lot of fun.

[Bill Gruby]

 Wynn Robins is a New Zealander. Hope all is well with him. Thoughts and prayers go to all of them.

  "Billy G"

[john e. holliday]

Sounds like that part of the world is taking a beating.  Australia with the rains and now New Zealand with the earth quakes. 

[Bill Little]

I hope my friends "down under" are coming through all of this in good shape.  My thoughts and prayers go out for everyone involved.

Bill

[Randy Ryan]

I combine my prayers with those here as well

[ash]

So far everyone I would expect to hear from in Christchurch has popped up ok. Wynn used to live there but moved North to Hamilton last year. Same with Kevin Barnes. I don't know if Jon Spain is still in Christchurch, he's been travelling around in recent years. Trevor Henderson is fine. Paul Lagan lives quite far away from the damaged area, same with the Palmer lads. I'm far away in Auckland. Off the top of my head I don't know any other Christchurch based CL fliers.

Thank for your concern, gents. This time it's in a different league.

[BillLee]

Just got word that Hans Visser from the Netherlands, who has been in NZ since the first of the year, is o.k.

Bill

[Jim Kraft]

I have been corresponding with a few fellows over on RCGroups on the Vintage and Old Timers forum, and they are all in Aukland also. One of them said that he has family in Christchurch, but they were all OK. They said that some of the beautiful old buildings were beyond repair. My heart goes out to all of them.

[Scott B. Riese]

A-MEN....My thoughts are with ALL of you down under!


Scott Riese

[PJ Rowland]

We are close to our neigbours and all of the Stunt community down under is praying for safe passage through this difficult time - They are calling it the Worst Natural disaster in NZ history...  

In australia we are getting 24 Hour coverage. Latest update from the news website a few minutes ago.


Seventy-five people are dead - 55 have been identified, with 20 more unidentified - and a further 300 are missing in the worst natural disaster in New Zealand's history.

With some structures - including the Canterbury TV (CTV) building - having been declared too damaged to have any hope of survivors, authorities have shifted their focus elsewhere.

At 1pm (local time) the area around the Grand Chancellor Hotel, Christchurch's tallest building, was urgently evacuated as engineers noted it had leaned 1m in the space of 10 minutes this afternoon.

Mayor Bob Parker warned the inevitable collapse would have further consequences.

"If that goes over you can imagine dropping a huge stone into a bowl of jelly. It will create aftershocks which will affect other buildings," he said.

A walk around Christchurch in the grey morning light today revealed a town gutted after the 6.3 magnitude quake hit the city at lunchtime yesterday.

[W.D. Roland]

Wow
Hoping everyone the best in this mess.

At times like these I become speechless....

David

[Brett Buck]

Wow
Hoping everyone the best in this mess.

At times like these I become speechless....

  I have been listening to Radio New Zealand over the shortwave and it sure sounds like a real mess. I can understand the problem - I was here for Loma Prieta and it was a pretty strange few weeks.

     Brett

[PJ Rowland]

Brett: I saw you more as a Ham radio man..  or internet Radio - Short wave no..   

[ash]

Anyone interested can listen to (or read) Radio NZ by clicking on the "Listen Live" link here: http://radionz.co.nz

It is the government (under)funded news and information radio station, kind of our equivalent of the BBC.
Probably the most trustworthy news source of all here.

[Bill Little]

Thanks for the link, Adrian.  Still praying for the "best" for all involved.

Bill Little

[Wynn Robins]

thanks for all th e e-mails guys - nice to know that even though you are all on the other side of the world - that you still care about us down here in NZ - as Ash said - we are all ok - not so lucky for some however - truly a horrific event - I have a number of friends and family that have been affected by the Quake  - thankfully non reported missing or worse...

[Mike Scholtes]

The NZ quake has been front-page news here in Northern California where earthquakes are common. I work in Oakland where the double-deck freeway pancaked in the 1989 quake, killing about 60 people a quarter mile from my office. My building came within a whisker of collapsing on us and never reopened; was demolished later. All the West Coast stunt community lived through that one so we are acutely aware of the horror and devastation of a major quake. The scenes from Christchurch are ghastly and appalling. Our prayers go to all the people affected by this.

[PJ Rowland]

Latest official news feed : 24 Feb.

Police today confirmed 98 deaths with grave fears for a further 226 people.

There was some confusion about whether the 98 confirmed dead were included in the list of 226 missing.

But the NZ government and police have made it clear the scale of the disaster is much greater than anyone expected.

“We are very fearful tonight that the death toll could be much greater than any of us ever feared,” Prime Minister John Key said.

"All over the world when we see disasters like this, we see miracle stories of people being pulled out, days and in some cases weeks after the event," Mr Key told TV3.

"That does not mean that there can't and won't be people trapped in buildings," he said. "We can't give up hope, but we also need to be realistic."