Fatigue setting in: Southland CD boss

Southland's Civil Defence boss has returned from a city on edge, where he says people are fighting fatigue and struggling with the constant menace of aftershocks.

An exhausted Neil Cruickshank yesterday returned from Christchurch after spending the past three days assisting the emergency response to the 7.1-magnitude earthquake on Saturday.

Mr Cruickshank had a variety of roles, including advising authorities on the correct procedures and spent Tuesday night acting as the group controller, essentially in charge of the entire Civil Defence operation.

"Luckily for me it was a pretty quiet night."

But it has been anything but quiet in the city itself, with aftershocks continuing to rattle everyone, he said.

"People aren't sleeping. The aftershocks are weighing on people's minds; they're relentless."

There would be long-lasting effects in Christchurch, not only on the infrastructure and housing but on the psychology of the people, Mr Cruickshank said.

"I think people are only just starting to realise it's going to take a long time to get over this."

The characteristics of the destruction left behind were unusual, with the damage in pockets around the city, he said.

"It's quite strange. You could drive for 10 minutes and see no sign of damage, but around the corner the road could be ripped up and buildings falling over."

Co-ordinating the response was a monumental task and, because of the nature of the disaster, not all the emergency response operations were running at 100 per cent, but not through a lack of effort, he said.

A lot of the people involved were also suffering and they disregarded their own plight to work tirelessly for others, Mr Cruickshank said.

But the workload was beginning to show, with fatigue setting in. He had not slept for the past two days and others were the same, if not worse, he said.

"People just don't want to stop working, they just want to keep going and going, but there comes a time when you just have to stop and hand it over to someone else."

And that was beginning to happen, with fresh staff starting to trickle into the disaster zone.

Among them will be a former Invercargill man who now heads the Hurunui Civil Defence emergency management group in North Canterbury.

Allan Grigg, who was the emergency management training officer in Invercargill until April, said he and some of his team would travel down to Christchurch in the next few days.

"There'll be a few tired bodies and minds down there that need some help."

The Hurunui Civil Defence group had offered their services a few days ago and the appeal had finally come, he said.

"It always takes a few days. In these situations there is naturally a degree of ownership, until people start running out of steam."

- © Fairfax NZ News