Christchurch earthquake

Salam and greetings,

As you may or may not have heard, there was quite a big earthquake down in Christchurch (south island) yesterday afternoon.

For more info about the quake

• Official updates about it on NZ Civil Defense site:
  http://www.civildefence.govt.nz 
• TradeMe has a Chch Earthquake support page up:
  http://www.trademe.co.nz/christchurch-earthquake-support
• If you're on Twitter you can follow the tag #eqnz for more updates.

If you know someone in Christchurch

• and you want to locate/report about them, please go to http://bit.ly/go9l69 
• and you've heard from them, post a message on their Facebook wall saying they're safe, or not (also report it to the site above) 
• please refrain from calling/txting them to free up the overloaded servers, & so that their batteries won't be used unnecessarily

To help, you can make donations

• Federation of Islamic Association of NZ: http://www.fianz.co.nz/notices/quake2_content.php
• Red Cross Society: http://www.grabone.co.nz/christchurch/red-cross 
• The Salvation Army: http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/giving-back/donate-online/canterbury-earthquake-appeal 

To prepare for an emergency

Image by Peter Grundy, from Wired.

• Check out tiny.cc/EmergencyPrepNZ, it's got a combination of stuff to do and things to have for emergencies in NZ.

Let's hope & pray for the best for the people affected by the quake, and support them financially, physically or at least through do'a.

Regards,
MSVUW Committee.