Quake victims face new threat | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

Quake-ravaged Canterbury was today still at risk of being hit by floods from rising rivers despite being spared the worst from wild weather last night.

Emergency services, councils and other agencies were yesterday called to "numerous instances" of felled trees and power lines, some of which knocked out power and blocked roads, as high winds hammered the region in the wake of Saturday's pre-dawn magnitude 7.1 earthquake.

The weather last night was not as severe as authorities feared, but flooding could yet hit the region as stop-banks weakened by the quake may not be able to with-stand rising waters.

Civil Defence said the Waimakariri River could burst its stop-banks today if it continued to rise at the expected rate. About 150 people were evacuated from a holiday park near Kaiapoi yesterday as a precaution. Canterbury also continues to be rocked by aftershocks, with dozens of quakes of up to 4.8 magnitude striking overnight.

Hundreds of people spent their second night away from home in aid shelters in Christchurch after their houses were destroyed in the quake.

Schools in the region remain closed until at least Wednesday - but the quake did not stop students from six schools travelling to Tauranga to compete in the NZCT AIMS Games.

As their city was hit by aftershocks, the brave students were among the first to leave Christchurch when the airport reopened on Saturday.

And as the competition's first event kicked off yesterday, the Christchurch competitors were greeted with overwhelming applause after their arrival was announced over the loud speaker.

While the children are putting on a brave face, event organisers have been asked to make counselling facilities available to the visitors.

And normally strict cellphone rules have been relaxed so that children can be in contact with their families back home at all times.

Five pupils from Cobham Intermediate in Fendalton were on the second flight to leave Christchurch after the airport reopened after the quake on Saturday. Students told the Bay of Plenty Times they were relieved to be on safe ground.

Thirteen-year-old Shinae Montie said the ferocity of the earthquake caused her to fall out of bed and hit her head.

Sports co-ordinator for Cobham Intermediate Craig Dalzell said every child competing in AIMS had decided to come, despite the circumstances back home.

"They are in good spirits, especially seeing they have moved away from it to safety. I don't think its really dawned on them."

The Bay of Plenty Steamers rugby team were caught in the quake after their match with Canterbury the previous evening. And when daylight broke, the players were shocked at the devastation.

"We ate a restaurant around the corner after the match on Friday night and we walked around to see it the next day and it had been demolished," team manager Ross Everiss said.

"Bits were falling off it everywhere and that hit home to everyone that if the quake had hit five hours earlier, it would have been a vastly different story and quite possibly some of us wouldn't be here."

The team then had a harrowing 24-hour trip home, hiring a bus to take them to Picton and across Cook Strait, spending Saturday night in Wellington and then flying to Rotorua yesterday morning.

The Tauranga Boys' College under-15 rugby team, in Christchurch for a week-long tournament, managed to get on several flights out of the city Quake

Coach Barry Ririnui said it had been a terrifying experience for the side and they were just glad to be home.

Members of the Tauranga Girls' College's First XI hockey team, who were in Christchurch for the Fed Cup, were relieved to arrive home yesterday.

Coach Katrina Carson said most of the hockey team was up and getting ready to fly home when the quake struck.

"It throws you around; it wasn't quite real. A few of the girls knew what to do and got under doors ... It was pretty spooky."

It was an anxious time for parents whose daughters were competing in the tournament.

Tauranga woman Megan Lacy's eldest daughter, Jessica, 14, was in Christchurch with the Otumoetai College Girls' Hockey First XI.

Mrs Lacy's husband, Craig, and younger daughter, Georgia, 9, were also staying in Christchurch during the tournament.

Mrs Lacy spent Saturday on the phone, fielding calls from worried friends and relatives, thinking, "could I just have you (her family) back here now."

Team manager Jo Jackson said the 16 girls and three adults were staying in a two-storey motel in Papanui Rd, central Christchurch, when the quake hit, sending microwaves crashing to the floor and lights swinging from the ceiling.

"It was like half a minute easy, and then we just got waves of aftershocks. You just don't know what it is."

Katikati volunteer senior firefighter Brendan Gibbs and his family were in Christchurch for the New Zealand Road Running Championships but the race was canned after the quake hit.

Mr Gibbs said it felt like the bed was "moving across the floor" during the quake.

The holiday park where the family was staying survived the quake relatively unscathed. But about 600m down the road the roof and brickwork had collapsed on a church, destroying the entranceway to the building.

Due to fly home at 8pm tonight, Mr Gibbs said the family would be, "happy to be back where the ground doesn't move so much."

Meanwhile, Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers members are on standby to help in Canterbury.

President John Scrimgeour said members who had lived through the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake understood what the Cantabrians were experiencing.

Like the 7.1 magnitude Christchurch earthquake, the 6.3 magnitude Edgecumbe quake also affected the local farming community, knocking out power and water and severely damaging the dairy factory at Edgecumbe.

Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosby said he contacted his Christchurch counterpart Bob Parker last night to assure him the residents of Tauranga and its communities were thinking of them.

Mr Crosby said he told Mr Parker that Tauranga would offer practical assistance where it could, mainly from an engineering perspective. He said the city would be supporting the mayoral relief fund as he knew from his own experience of the Tauranga floods in 2005 that cash was what really helped the situation.