After
being rocked by a deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake, a wave of powerful
aftershocks, thousands are now stranded in a New Zealand town near the
quake's epicenter.
Helicopters
are being sent to airlift trapped tourists and locals from cut-off
communities in the Hurunui and Kaikoura districts, according to the New
Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management.
A
pair of ships, the HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Wellington, have also
been sent to waters off the coast of Canterbury to assist.
Aftershocks have rattled the
region during rescue efforts. They're are expected to continue
following the initial quake, which killed two people after it struck
early Monday local time, New Zealand authorities said.
"We
can say one thing with certainty: there will be more earthquakes to
come in this area," said GeoNet, New Zealand's official source of
geological hazard information.
Kaikoura, which is near the epicenter of the quake, is now cut off from the rest of the country.
The government is working to evacuate about 140 people out of Kaikoura, according to Prime Minister John Key.
He
said the U.S. Navy had volunteered its help to ferry people out aboard
two helicopters on the USS Sampson, which is in the area. Key said he
missed a call with US President-elect Donald Trump during the hectic
aftermath of the quake.
Landslides
There
have been somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 landslides since the
quake, GeoNet said, with areas of the Inland and Seaward Kaikoura Ranges
the most affected.
A handful of roads are closed indefinitely, according to the Canterbury Civil Defence and Emergency Management's Facebook page. But power in some places has been restored, as have limited telecommunications capabilities.
"It's
clear things aren't going to revert to normal pretty quickly, and that
it's going to take time for things to go back to how they were," Key
said.
Search and rescue teams, landslide specialists and building inspectors have been deployed, the agency said in a statement.
"We
know that water, food and fuel are required in Kaikoura, Hurunui and
Marlborough, and we're coordinating relief supplies and transport to get
those essentials in," the agency said.
Tuesday rain
Some of the country is now dealing with heavy rain, the effects of which are being exacerbated by the quakes' aftermath.
However, Kaikoura had been spared the worst of the downpour, according to the country's meteorological service.
Journalists at Radio New Zealand spoke with one family whose house was on a fault line and moved from its foundation.
A birds-eye view of the house shows the driveway cut down the middle, feet away from where it used to be.
"I'd say it's billions of dollars worth of money that we have to spend here but we're focused on what we're doing and we'll keep up the good work," Key said after the quake.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/14/asia/new-zealand-earthquake/
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