vanished

After an intense week of search and rescue 18 hr days and 3-4 hrs sleep our USAR team returned from Christchurch for a break.

I have many tragic photos from the inner cordon, but I'm only going to post this one. As we searched partial collapsed buildings it was if someone had frozen time with a pause button, and we got to walk through.

Everywhere there was evidence of people that had instantaneously fled for their lives. In restaurants steaks were partially cut through and the utensils dropped in place, reading glasses left on one side and hand bags on the other.

A huge conference room was full, all the pads had the 1st sentence partially written, and the tv cameras had fallen over on their tripods, the operators forgetting to even remove their headsets till they were pulled off when the cord fully extended.

Peoples tv's still running, kids school lunchboxes open on the sidewalk just left.

Hotel rooms with guests belongings sitting around and open as if they were there just moments ago.

It was very surreal, and its hard being home feeling helpless that we could not do more. There are still over 700 rescuers working hard.

Our hearts go out to all the Cantabrians affected and wish you strength to rebuild your city and lives.