[Black Wolf]

Poor bastards.

They had another one hit a few months back, and everyone remarked on how lucky they were it hit in the middle of the night, and to escape with no fatalities. Not so this time - 65 dead and almost guaranteed to rise, plus many, many injuries according to the radio today.

One bright spot is that there was actually a medical convention on in the middle of the city at the time. Admittedly, it was urologists, not trauma surgeons, but at least there's an excess of trained people on the ground, and I know a lot of them are mucking in and helping out.

This has really hit hard here - Australia and New Zealand are joined at the hip, especially WA, since we have a lot of Kiwis working out here. One of the offsiders on the rig I'm working on has family in Christchurch - last I heard he still hadn't gotten in touch with at least one person, plus my immediate supervisor's wife's family are in Christchurch, so he's been knee deep in this all day - I feel for them, since there's no way for them to do anything, really, if something's gone wrong - we're way over the other side of Australia, let alone the ocean.

[QuantumDelta]

My Kiwi mate is okay, talked to him earlier, but his friend is missing, doesn't feel good :<

[Dilmah G]

Eech, I had no idea about this. :\

* Dilmah G attempts to contact Kiwi friends.

[ssmit132]

Terrible. The news footage is just harrowing - I actually felt like I could have teared up.

My Kiwi mate is okay, talked to him earlier, but his friend is missing, doesn't feel good :<

I hope that your friend's friend is found safely, but as you said, the chances of that are not great.

[Rodo]

That sucks so bad, I was just watching the news.. seeing all those buildings torn apart and to think there's probably people under those, it just sucks.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I just saw this out of the blue last night on the national news.  It looks really bad over there right now.

[General Battuta]

Oh Jesus, I have two really good friends from there.

[watsisname]

Just saw this on the news, it's terrible to hear reports of people calling/emailing their loved ones while trapped under debris.   Here's wishing they get freed very soon.

Hope your friends got through okay, Battuta.