News

A number of initiatives have been kicked off by OUSA last week in the wake of the devastating earthquake that rocked Christchurch last weekend.

Otago’s Christchurch campus was closed all of last week while a significant clean up took place. No structural damage was reported to the buildings. On Thursday a support session for students who were in Christchurch on Saturday was held, at which staff from the Student Support Centre and a counsellor from Student Health were present. OUSA President Harriet Geoghegan was liaising with the President of the Canturbury students’ association (UCSA), and at the time of going to print, was planning a ‘reverse Undie 500’ to the Garden City to deliver “much needed food and water supplies.
   “The biggest feedback has been that there is a real shortage of water and that the UCSA foodbank will be in hot demand soon. Mobilising water and food supplies has been the first priority, and we will try to keep getting donations after the weekend,” Geoghegan says. OUSA was donated water containers from Wests and then actual water from Speights.
   Inexplicably dubbed a “mercy dash” by the Otago Daily Times, Geoghegan says the Otago students accompanying her are also keen to muck in alongside Canterbury students as long as they do not “get in the way.”
   Meanwhile, University of Otago Vice Chancellor Sir Professor Skegg tells Critic that he has been in touch with the Vice Chancellors of both Canterbury and Lincoln Universities, “to offer any help they would like.”
 
   Quake causes commuter chaos
   Scores of students trying to return to Otago’s Dunedin campus after the holidays were caught out by the quake, and later by high winds.
   The magnitude 7.1 earthquake shut down Christchurch Airport, a major hub for connecting flights, for most of Saturday, leading to widespread delays. Many travellers were rebooked onto flights on Sunday only to be delayed again by gale-force winds that cancelled flights at Dunedin Airport. Ironically, many flights were diverted to Christchurch.
   Dentistry student Inah Kim, who flew Pacific Blue, was caught up in the debacle. “We were given the option to either stay on the plane and be flown back up to Auckland, or get off at Christchurch but make our own way down to Dunedin,” she says. “They couldn't organise any accommodation or buses due to city lock-down and closed roads to public transport.”
   Other Pacific Blue passengers had the choice of being stranded in Christchurch overnight to ride out aftershocks or returning back to Auckland. They were offered replacements flights for no extra cost, but due to the backlog, some students were arriving in Dunedin three to four days late.
   Air New Zealand passengers were slightly better off, being put on put on buses from Christchurch to Dunedin. Some students reported arriving in town around 3am on Monday morning.