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2010 - and now 2011 -Canterbury earthquake recovery links

Whichever way you look at them, it is not easy recovering from a disaster. People get affected in different ways - physically, emotionally and financially. At 4:35 last week (4 September 2010) we were woken by the magnitude 7.1 Canterbury earthquake striking around Christchurch the South Island of New Zealand. Luckily, for a range of reasons (the time of day, good building codes, type of quake, etc.) there were minimal injuries. But these things pan out slowly .... Five days on and we have had 11 aftershocks of magnitude 5-6, 71 between magnitude 4-5, and 247 between magnitudes 3-4 ... meaning less sleep and more damage in many cases. Even in the midst of this people are out cleaning up, coping and helping out ... really amazing stuff. One way some are helping is in using the Internet to share information, so here are some links to useful Canterbury quake online resources ...

The official sites

Collectively these sites provide first point of call information for all government services, and official updates from different agencies. You will find links for financial and health assistance. There is new website set up for business assistance. Other links point to help with anxious children and much more.

I've just updated the official site links in this section for the 6.3 Canterbury earthquake - 22 February 2011. Some of the other information lower on the page was put up after the September 2010 quake, and may still be useful.

Official sites for 6.3 Canterbury earthquake - 22 February 2011

Maps and things

A number of very cool resources have been created to graphically show what's happened in Canterbury over the past few days

Dealing with stressful times

After a traumatic event like an earthquake, it�s normal for people to feel stressed and anxious. Most people are, in any case, feeling tired after living with hundreds of aftershocks during the past few days. The Christchurch City Council has put out a short pamplet Coping with a disaster for people caught in the Canterbury quake events. A number of more in-depth resources can be accessed from other sites.

Accomodation, donations, etc.

If you know of other useful resource sited for those within the Canterbury earthquake zone please let me know (use contact links below) and I will post links to them here. If you wish to make a comment you can do so through the associated Sparks for change quake posting.

Many of the other sections in this site relate to community and sustainable development and so link as the capacity building site of disaster management. The concept of social resilience is particularly closely linked. The main index on the left points to related topic areas that can support the achievement of these ideas in practice.