Aftershocks continued to rattle Christchurch yesterday, as authorities said an elderly man died when a series of powerful tremors hit the New Zealand city a day earlier.
In what has become an all-too- familiar routine for a community hit by three major earthquakes since September last year, weary residents began cleaning their properties and emergency crews rushed to repair power lines and burst water mains.
The city, still recovering from a magnitude 6.3 quake in February that killed 181 people, endured more that 50 aftershocks on Monday, the strongest a 6.0 tremor that toppled already-weakened buildings.
More than 20,000 homes were left without electricity on a bitterly cold night and jangled nerves were frayed further when a magnitude 4.7 aftershock jolted residents awake at 2:48am.
“A very rough night in the city,” Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker told Radio New Zealand.
Parker initially said the city could take comfort in the fact that there were no fatalities, but even that consolation was stripped away when the Canterbury health board confirmed the tremors killed a nursing home resident.
The number of people injured was also revised upward from 10 to 45, two of whom remained in Christchurch Hospital.
Schools remained closed across the city, elective surgery was canceled in hospitals and a welfare center was set up in the suburb of Aranui for people unable to return to their homes.
The worst-hit area was the damaged central city known as the “red zone,” which remains off-limits to the public following the earlier earthquakes, where up to 50 buildings collapsed.
In an outer suburb a block of shops vacant since the February quake collapsed, as did the historic 134-year-old Timeball Station — which used to indicate the time to ships — in the port city of Lyttelton.
Power company Orion said electricity was initially cut to 54,000 homes, but the number had been reduced to 20,000 overnight and services was to be restored across the city later yesterday.
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