New Zealand Fire Service and Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Media update 3 pm Sunday 27 February 2011

Efforts continue in a rescue phase. It is a slow and painstaking process and the safety of everyone working on the sites is paramount.

Fire

• Tankers are now well-established in areas of high risk
• 10 command units are now in place to co-ordinate incident management
• There are fire crews at the three main sites in case of fire
• 11 crews now moving through the greater city area to assess public
needs and deal with issues arising. 70% of the high priority areas (in particular the eastern suburbs) have now been covered.
• There have been five fires in the last 24 hours. Three of these were
related to power being reinstated to homes and could have been prevented.
• We are urging the public to please take great care with electrical
items, generators and portable cooking devices.
• The welfare of our staff is of prime importance and every measure is
being taken to ensure their safety.

USAR

We are able to report good progress at all three main sites.

At the CTV and PGG buildings , ‘delayering’ of the buildings will continue today. This means removing debris piece by piece, slowly and carefully, and will take considerable time.

CTV:

• New Zealand, Chinese and Japanese teams working on this site.
• This is the most advanced of the three main sites.
• Now down to an extremely thorough and delicate operation.

Pyne Gould Guinness:

• British USAR teams are very focussed and committed at this site.
• Progressing well, but a very heavy and complex operation.
• Lots of risks on-site.
• An access platform has been established.

Cathedral:

• Slow, careful progress being made at this site.
• Continual removal of material and debris overnight and today.
• Heavy machinery is enabling the teams to achieve incredibly delicate operations while keeping our teams safe.
• USAR teams have inserted large steel tubes into some parts of the cathedral and are crawling through these tubes, pushing small hand-guided diggers in front of them to burrow in. From there, they are creating safe havens for themselves as they work outwards from these for further searching.
• Outside the cathedral, steelwork is being used to stabilise the
front section where the New Zealand USAR team is working.

Grand Chancellor:

• Engineers are still developing an engineering solution to stabilise the building.

• We are pleased to report that USAR teams have now been able to begin the search process in surrounding buildings.
• This work began early this morning.

USAR team leaders who attended the 11.30am media briefing

Singapore Lt Col Ling Kok Yong
China Zhao Ming, China Earthquake Admin Deputy Director
Japan Yukio Yoshiii Team leader of Japan Disaster Rescue Team
Australian taskforce Queensland John Cawcutt Taskforce leader
Peter Dawson Deputy Taskforce Leader
Australian Taskforce New South Wales Gary Picken Taskforce leader
UK Pete Crook Taskforce Leader
Taiwan Liang Kuo-Wei Chief Director of Special Rescue Team
Chin-Tshong Hsu, Liaison Officer
New Zealand Mitchell Brown, Area Manager

There are a total of 429 international USAR personnel.

ends

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