Hopefully a massive tsunami will hit Libya soon.

Problem solved.

What does Libya have to do with an earthquake in New Zealand? If anything, hope that a massive Tsunami hits New Zealand soon. Put them all out of their missery.

STM said disasters like this are likely to continue, and since Libya is at the coast, it would be better for the whole place to be underwater.

Then again, it'll still be on the TV all the time.

We should move to nice cold, tectonically silent, people-less Mars.

Except that until last September, no-one even knew that Christchurch was on a fault line. In the history of white settlement, there had never been any earthquakes in that region.

The university my dad works at is built over a fault line.

Adelaide is also really prone to floods.

I have no idea why people continue to build here.

This is going to cost billions to repair there economy, Australia has sent supplies and aid to assist the injured and starving patients.

Our economy was fucked waaaay before Christchurch's September earthquake (now we're just ridiculously in debt). I wasn't surprised to see the OCR decrease, but it's not gonna do shit with our ever increasing GST.

I anticipate bad economic shit ahead.

Yesterday I saw a really horrible piece of news footage. The last bit of the church tower collapsed. This really really old beautiful building is now a piece of rubble. Poor people who put all that effort into it centuries ago :(

Admittedly when something like this happens I'm usually more disappointed about the destruction of old buildings/art rather than human life.

I don't choose to be this way.

Isn't every Australian city? They're all near the coast, build some cities in the mainland.

The Mainland is just hot desert. Not a ideal place to live.

Las Vegas would tell you otherwise.

Would it though? I mean really?

Vegas has outstanding exceptions in that it has a dam and HEP within short range.

Some people manage to eke out a living there.

Others can deal with it.

The interesting thing with a disaster like this is how it really shows the extremes in people. On the plus side, the huge number of people who have come to help with the rescue and recovery from all over the world, as well as everyone here in New Zealand who is doing all they can to help, from those who were near victims themselves immediately rushing to help those who weren't so lucky, to those offering their homes to people without a place to live anymore, as well as those of us who are simply donating cash.

But then there's the low-lifes who think now's a great time to use the "opportunity" to loot from damaged houses and scam people; it's pretty disgusting. And there's people who think it's fun to send hoax messages to emergency services who really don't need their time wasted that way.

I have no doubt Christchurch will be rebuilt eventually, and it'll be a lesson to the whole country that we can't afford to be complacent about earthquake safety. But it's going to be a long road and as Leto said, the economy wasn't exactly thriving before this.

Realistically though, it doesn't matter where you are there's still going to be disasters and loss of lives. Obviously it's pretty bloody shocking when it does happen like this, but there's no point living in constant fear of what might happen or what's already happened, so all we can do is pick up the pieces and keep on keeping on.

(It's a crappy thumnail. Click the link to see the full pic)

Update: Another 29 confirmed dead.

You don't have to keep us updated how many people have died.

Right enough, we watch the news too you know.

Yer, but I am posting updates for those who don't.

I'm pretty sure none of us want to know how many more people are dying, the even itself was sad enough.

True, but still.

No, not still.

JUST LEAVE IT WE GET THE IDEA

Okay, Clam down sunshine.:p