Quake-struck communities still cut off

Some quake-stricken settlements along the closed section of State Highway 1 are beginning their third day without water, power or a route out. Ward, with a population of fewer than 1000, and Kēkerengū, which is home to just a few dozen people, were among some of the communities worst-affected by Monday’s 7.5-magnitude earthquake – suffering not just substantial physical damage, but also finding themselves cut off from the rest of the South Island after the Transport Agency was forced to close a huge swathe of the highway either side of Kaikoura. There were other striking new features of the landscape – down at Ward beach, some local fishermen were studying the coastal rock shelf, which they estimated had been raised nearly two metres by the force of the quake. Above the new high tide line was a band of newly-exposed rock, covered in rapidly drying seaweed. Read the story here 16:27

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