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Fear and trembling in New Zealand

 

Saturday's earthquake in New Zealand was as big as the Haiti one -- but with the blessings that NZ has long had building codes that take quake risk into account, and it happened at a time when people were at home in (quake-resistant) wooden houses.

It was the large old stone and brick public buildings that fared worst, and it will be tragic for Christchurch if it loses some of them as they are its defining glories (along with Hagley Park).

On the news I saw a restaurant in a building that lost its walls but still had its tables laid with everything in place. This in a quake that lifted whole chunks of road and split floors.

The whole disaster is a shock to me. I used to live in Chch, and its orderliness is always remarked upon -- nothing ever out of place, everything neatly arranged; all rather British, in fact.

Or it was!

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