Exhausted rescuers feel quake’s emotional toll
NEW ZEALAND: Devastated rescue workers had to be dragged away
from the wreckage of Christchurch’s CTV building, unable to stop
thinking of the entombed earthquake victims they were leaving behind.
“It’s not a matter of just walking away from a worksite, they were
touching bodies,” said police commander Dave Cliff, describing how
searchers refused to leave the fire-scarred site on Wednesday night, 24
hours after the tremor.
“This is deeply emotional for those people working on this. They do
it because they have an absolute desire to help people, to find people
to rescue.”
About 700 rescue workers are now sifting steel and concrete wreckage
in central Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-biggest city, which was
hammered Tuesday by the vicious 6.3-magnitude earthquake.
They have come from all parts of the world to help in the
increasingly bleak hunt for survivors, with fears mounting that all 228
people still missing were dead.
But many are local men and women who have been directly affected by
the earthquake, leaving their lives in turmoil as they pursue their grim
task. “The first thing they all talk about is what happened in that
first 12 hours, the trauma, trying to get people out from under the
rubble,” said Greg O’Connor, president of New Zealand’s police
association.
“And then when you actually talk to the local staff a little further
they start talking about what the impact has been on them and their own
families.”
No sign of life has been detected since Wednesday, but Mount Cook
rescue volunteer Charlie Hobbs is holding out hope of a miraculous
rescue. “You have to, I’m an eternal optimist,” he told AFP from the
rubble of the city’s cathedral, where up to 22 people are believed to be
buried.
“I know that Canterbury people are fairly robust tough people and
we’ll get back.”
Hobbs and his wife, a volunteer rescue nurse, packed up their things
as soon as it became clear how bad the tremor was and sped towards
Christchurch, an exodus of cars from the besieged city passing in the
other direction.
CHRISTCHURCH, Friday, AFP
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