Disaster strikes in New Zealand

Must be on the mend, managed two trips down the street today, but was puffing a bit by the time I got back.

This has been a terrible disaster on the outskirts of Christchurch in South Island, New Zealand with yesterday's earthquake. It started just before noon with the big quake which everyone is suggesting is an aftershock of big 7.1. bump last year, however I see that so far there have been another six or so aftershocks around the 6. mark over a period of ten hours. This will have made things very dangerous as each aftershock will have caused more damage to the already weakened buildings.

I had actually been on the "Most Recent Earthquakes" website earlier last night as I regularly check out this site out to see if California is still attached to the USA !! and see where else in the world cocktail waiters are being saved a bit work.

I note that the Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of the lady who fell down the disused mine shaft (Alison Hume) is taking place. It was ridiculous that the emergency services were standing by doing nothing restricted by current Health and Safety Regulations. What did interest me was that evidence was given by Alan Jeffreys of the Scottish Cave Rescue Organisation who would have been down that mineshaft at the double had they been called out to assist. I have known Alan for about thirty years and he is a very remarkable chap, ex policeman, playwright, thespian, collector of weapons and uniforms and fanatical speleologist who has, with his team exposed and mapped most of the Scottish caves which are mainly situated up in Sutherland.

Latest revelations in the long running tram saga, the Edinburgh City Council have not even managed to purchase all the land needed to complete the route, should they ever get to that stage !! and even worse, they caused chaos in Princes Street on Saturday afternoon when squads were brought in to repair damaged track (by bicycles !!!) which has yet to be run on - what a joke.

Everyone was warned that that there was likely to be trouble after Sunday's Old firm match ( Rangers v Celtic) at Parkhead which Celtic won 3 - 0 after a woeful performance by a lacklustre Rangers team. Strathclyde Police ran out of cell space in the city, with over three hundred arrests they were using cells sixty miles away - and to date there are no figures available about the expected increase in domestic violence after the game.

Missing the regular meeting of Laird O Cockpen RA 500 tonight due to my current health situation, but hopefully I will be back to rights for next months meeting.