Aftershock Update

24 Feb 2011

Other Key Websites for Quake Information

www.anglicantaonga.org.nz - Official site of the Anglican church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia.

www.christchurchcathedral.co.nz - Official site of the ChristChurch Cathedral in Christchurch.

From Bishop Victoria

"I join you in giving thanks for the extraordinary work done by the emergency workers. This even more devastating earthquake calls us to reach out into the community and make sure no one is overlooked. In short, be calm, be sensible, be compassionate, be a good neighbour. Pray for confidence that God will see us through."

In Christ, Victoria

For Parishes & Clergy

Due to the Anglican Centre being closed and within the cordon, we have now opened a temporary Anglican Centre space at the St Peters Hall, 22 Main South Road, Upper Riccarton. Bishop Victoria is also available on her mobile phone - 027 223 8704.

The Bishop has requested all parishes text or email her a basic damage report for their parish - anglicanearthquake@gmail.com.

For Media

For media enquiries either contact Bishop Victoria directly on her mobile (027 223 8704) or email anglicanearthquake@gmail.com. Failing that please contact the diocesan Communications Officer, Joshua Moore, on 021 277 2658 or spankymoore@gmail.com.

Counseling

The Christchurch Charity Hospital are offering free counseling appointments to help people through the trauma of the earthquake. Those wishing to make an appointment should ring (03) 360 2266.

Cathedral Update

Police say there is no possibility of survivors in the rubble of Christchurch Cathedral. Superintendent Dave Cliff said today 16 to 22 people were presumed to have died in the cathedral, which was devastated in the 6.3 magnitude quake on Tuesday. All nine cathedral staff survived, although one of the cathedral volunteers was admitted to hospital with injuries. Mr Cliff said those people would be among the growing number of bodies being sent to the temporary morgue set up by emergency services. Mr Cliff said the focus remained on finding survivors. "This is very much an operation around rescue; it's looking for the living. "If we find a body but we can't recover it quickly, we will carry on."

Dean Peter Beck told the BBC that he managed to escape his cathedral office and help get people out of the cathedral. A video and interview with the dean by BCC can be seen here. One television video reportedly showed a person clinging to a window in the cathedral's tower. "The most important thing at the moment is not the buildings, it's the people," said Dean Beck. "We've got to reach out to each other here in Christchurch and Canterbury and do what we can to deal with those who are wounded, those who have been killed and their families."

But Mr Cliff also dismissed reports of "signs of life" heard at other central city buildings this morning. "Some of the information is rumour, speculation, not founded on fact." Mr Cliff said the rescuers were using sonic equipment, dogs, and cameras in the quest to find more survivors. Rescuers also found no survivors at the Holy Cross Chapel on Chancery Lane, where signs of life were reported this morning, the Fire Service said. Two Australian search and rescue teams who were deployed to the building said they found no one there. They told Newstalk ZB they had since been sent to the PGG building.

Mortuary facilities are in place at Christchurch Hospital and Burnham Military Camp. So far there has been no need to transfer the bodies of earthquake victims out of the region, Judge MacLean said.

From Anglican Taonga...

There are grave fears, of course, for 22 visitors to the city who may have been climbing the cathedral tower when the Tuesday shake hit.
“We have real fears that they may be under the rubble”, says Bishop Victoria.

Other heritage Anglican churches in the city have also been badly damaged. St Luke’s in the City, St John’s Latimer Square and Holy Trinity Avonside have all suffered “devastating damage”, says Bishop Victoria. “But we don’t think there have been deaths or significant injuries associated with the other churches.” “To the best of my knowledge,” she says, “no clergy are missing.”

Nonetheless, the severity of the psychological blow struck by the quake means that some clergy may be struggling to cope. “I have a real concern,” she says, “that there are clergy, who are themselves traumatized, who are seeking to help other people who are traumatized. We are going to have to watch this carefully.” Bishop Victoria spent several hours yesterday talking to clergy who had contacted her.

Hear an interview with Bishop on Toronto's Metro Morning show here.

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The denominational leaders aretrying to set a major city-wide non-denominational service and gathering for prayer. But where they’d been planning to hold that service this Sunday, they’ve now decided to postpone that for one week. Part of the reason for the postponement is that Hagley Park – the first venue they’d sought – has been ruled out for this Sunday. The authorities don’t want traffic cluttering access to the stricken inner city.

When the service is held, says Bishop Victoria, it’ll strike a different note than the one held in Cathedral Square after the September quake.
That one, she said, was a service of thanksgiving. Pure and simple. Lives hadn’t been lost, back then. This time, she says, there’ll be thanksgiving – but lament, too.

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Bishop Victoria says the church leaders have been in touch with the city’s funeral directors. They’ve sent them a list of churches which are still able to hold funeral services, and they’ve alerted the parishes that they’ve been offered for funeral duty. Given the numbers of church buildings which have been knocked out of action, there’ll be plenty for those remaining churches to do. Church leaders are asking their clergy “to be as helpful as possible” where the planning of funerals is concerned. Bishop Victoria is also encouraging her own Anglican clergy to reach wide. “It is absolutely understandable that their first concern is for their parishioners and church family. But there has to be a parallel effort. “They must make every effort to reach out to their neighbours, and to be in touch with the wider community.”

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Bishop Victoria Matthews says the situation across the city is far more grave than in the wake of the Sept 4 quake.
“In September,” she says, “there was a sense of pervasive hope.”
“This time there are high, high levels of anxiety, and a sense of despair.”
“We are facing an entirely different scene, a crisis of an entirely greater order of magnitude.”
“People are suffering terrible anxiety. There are still many people who have been unable to make contact with members of their family and with their closest friends.”

Last evening, Bishop Matthews was at the tent city set up in Hagley Park. She watched and talked with people as hundreds inched forward, in the rain, towards shelter.

Bishop Matthews says that one of her top priorities now is to find a church “preferably with running water” that is safe, and which can become the nerve centre for a diocesan relief and pastoral effort.
“I want to open that up 24/7 as place where people can come and pray and receive pastoral care – and a place which clergy can use as a base to go out into the highways and byways to offer pastoral care.”

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It's already clear, too, that churches across the city have suffered more widespread damage than in the 7.1 quake of September 4 last year.
Oxford St Baptist, Durham St Methodist and Knox Presbyterian – which were each being repaired under the supervision of heritage architects following the September quake – have now been destroyed.

On the Anglican scene St Luke’s in the City, St John’s Latimer Square and Holy Trinity Avonside have all suffered “devastating damage”. Other damage will be widespread.
The Anglican Centre – an multi-level office building in the CBD which houses the diocesan office – has been evacuated, and it’s known that all 14 diocesan staff were able to make their way to safety.
In the days immediately after the September 4 quake, Bishop Matthews called daily meetings of key diocesan staff in an office at the foot of the garden of her own home.
Her own home has suffered much greater damage this time around.

www.anglicantaonga.org.nz

The Episcopal News Service is covering the Aftershock here.