Gwen Shlam's Blog: New Zealand buries quake victims

Monday, February 28, 2011

New Zealand buries quake victims

Government announces emergency funding package for Christchurch businesses and employees as first funerals held

Christchurch has begun burying those killed in last week's earthquake as the New Zealand prime minister announces an emergency funding package to support the devastated community.

The official death toll from the quake rose to 148 on Monday after another body was found, and there are grave fears for about 50 people who are unaccounted for.

Among the dead or missing are dozens of foreign students, mostly Japanese and Chinese, from an international language school inside an office building that collapsed with up to 120 people inside. Up to 22 other people may be buried in rubble at ChristChurch cathedral, most of them believed to be tourists climbing the bell tower for its panoramic views of the southern New Zealand city. Four victims are believed to be British.

The first of many funerals for victims was held on Monday for Baxtor Gowland, who was five months old. More than 200 friends and family attended the service for the baby, who was born a fortnight after Christchurch suffered its first major earthquake on 4 September. He is thought to be the youngest victim.

John Key, the prime minister, has vowed that Christchurch will be rebuilt to building standards that can withstand major earthquakes. Many of the buildings that collapsed or were badly damaged were built before New Zealand upgraded building rules in the 1970s to guard against quake damage.

The emergency finance package announced by Key was expected to cost more than NZ$100m (�47m). It comprises a wage subsidy to businesses of NZ$500 a week for each employee, together with job loss compensation of NZ$400 a week to any worker whose employer's business has become unviable. Covering the next six weeks, the package was "just the first part of the long haul to get the city back on its feet", Key said. He pledged continuing state support.

"It is designed to immediately put money into peoples' pockets and give them some confidence," he said.

Engineers and planners said the central city may be unusable for months to come and that at least a third of the buildings may have to be razed. The government has said that virtually all services in the area will have to operate from elsewhere during the rebuilding period.

"It's quite clear that a lot of buildings are going to have to come out of the business district, so where a building is condemned it will need to be taken down," Key said.

The fund will not be open to businesses with head offices outside Christchurch, or which are government-owned. An estimated 42,000 people are expected to qualify for assistance.

Key said rebuilding could take between five and 10 years and would cost between NZ$10bn and NZ$15bn.

A bill that size would amount to between 5% and 8% of New Zealand's gross domestic product. It would be a drain on the economy of at least five times that felt on the US economy after hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, and "probably closer to eight times", Chris Green, an analyst at First NZ Capital, told the National Business Review.

The former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, now head of the UN development programme, said the damage to Christchurch was as bad as that seen in Haiti last year. Clark, visiting in a personal capacity, said: "This is a city where the life has been squeezed out of it ... So many people no longer with us. Grieving families. People with terrible injuries. Livelihoods destroyed."

A two-minute silence will take place across the country at 12.51pm on Tuesday, a week after the earthquake struck. A vigil for London-based New Zealanders is to be held at Westminster cathedral on Wednesday evening.

Toby Manhire

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