The continuing woes of Christchurch

While much, if not most, of New Zealand has been able to lose itself in the escapism of the Rugby World Cup, Christchurch keeps getting battered by too much reality.

It is difficult for non-Cantabrians to grasp the depth of the post-earthquake problems. Almost eight months after the devastating Feb. 22 earthquake, the entire central business district is still locked down and frozen in time. Money still rests in tills, sodas from those long-ago meetings still sit on coffee shop tables, vendors' stock remains locked away behind a chain-link and patrolled security cordon.

Central Christchurch, the heart of the once-thriving city, is a ghost town. And every time another aftershock comes, more structures teeter or even tumble. Its tall buildings stand at odd, non-architectural angles.

The rebuild progresses slowly. Setbacks, seemingly, arise at every corner. But it's the human toll that is the most worrying. Last night, for example, thousands of folks in Christchurch went down to the fanzone to watch the All Blacks' quarterfinal match on a big screen. It was a game that was supposed to have been played in Christchurch, but, because of extensive damage to the city's stadium, was moved to Auckland.

Just minutes after the game started, just minutes into a couple of hours of willing suspension of reality for these hard-done-by folks, a 5.5 magintude aftershock hit. Bloody typical, they must have thought. The impact of the aftershocks - this one was number 7,668 - has nothing to do with the Richter scale. It's the pervasiveness, the black-cloud hovering, the sheer bloody unrelenting assault that does it.

I felt so sorry for the good folks of Christchurch last night. Outwardly they seemed to take it with their now-usual stoic shrug. They're tougher than me, that's for sure. At least the All Blacks, after a slow start, won. Perhaps that meant something. Perhaps this is why the whole Rugby World Cup means so much in New Zealand. It just seemed like such a bastard, that even after robbing Christchurch of its games, the shaking earth won't quit long enough to let them enjoy the matches in peace from afar, to simply be All Blacks fans again.