News from Christchurch YMCA

On Saturday a 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked New Zealand's second largest city Christchurch, causing injuries and widespread damage, including the collapse of some buildings and power outages.

Below is an update Christchurch YMCA's CEO Josie Ogden-Schroder.

We are blessed that none of our staff have been injured and there have been no fatalities.  The centre of the city is still cordoned off and civil defense etc are carrying out inspections on the buildings in the CBD.  The YMCA Education Centre is within this area and the reports so far are that the centre is still standing although we are unclear on whether or not it is going to get a green or red sticker from the engineers. We will not be opening the Education centre until further notice.   

 The City Y building has fared well with some flooding due to burst water mains but not a lot else of significance is obvious. All water has to be boiled however so that is adding to the logistical efforts of the staff at accommodation.  We have chosen to evacuate the residents of Williams House into the main hostel, until such time as we can get an engineer to check it over.  There are some bricks missing, and the chimney is gone etc. 

 Wainui Park has fared amazingly well with us all gobsmacked that the sewerage system has not collapsed.  Some flooding due to burst water pipes at Wainui to but nothing too drastic, considering.  Bishopdale is still closed to the public because the quake has left the place without fire alarms - we hope to be able to open early next week when we get the relevant electrician expertise in to fix that.  This will include closing the childcare probably until Wednesday.

 At the time of the quake Wainui was training OSCAR volunteers - they had an exciting time!  The permanent students who live at the City Y slept marae style in the conference room last night (40 of them) and all are in good spirits.  

 So we are still feeling lots of aftershocks.  One just about an hour ago which made pictures in my house fall off walls so still pretty big.

 As you will all know there have been lots of warnings about a further 'big' quake that may be pending...  therefore it is hard to know to what extent we should resume business as usual.  At this stage the only parts of our business that we will put on hold until we have an all clear from structural engineers are Education and Williams House.