By Jessica Rowe
A Christmas army was mobilised in Christchurch this morning to help clean up the mountains of silt left behind from Friday’s earthquakes.
Four hundred volunteers rolled through the eastern suburbs, shovelling mud and clearing access ways.
After a relaxing Christmas Day, today’s hive of activity was a stark contrast. Hundreds of workers were happy to give up their Boxing Day, ‘mucking in’ to lend frustrated residents a hand.
Ian and Nicky O'Rouke's property was swamped by mud and silt in Friday’s quakes, for the fourth time in 12 months.
“It's just exhausting, you get over one lot, get your garden back, start to continue life, and we are back to where we started,” they say. “This is not how we wanted to spend our Christmas holidays but it is awesome just seeing the community pulling together.”
The large quakes caused more liquefaction. Mud and silt bubbled to the surface, flooding streets.
Students and farmers joined with residents of all ages to form a hard-working Christmas volunteer army.
The volunteers know the drill; this is the sixth co-ordinated clean-up since the September quake.
The founder of the student volunteer army, Sam Johnson, says it is not just about cleaning up the mud and silt, but also showing support for the community.
“It is just to show the eastern Christchurch suburbs that people still care, a lot of people are willing to help and despite these dreaded aftershocks over Christmas there are still people willing to help and get rid of the silt.”
He is calling on residents who need help cleaning up to register their properties on the student volunteer army's website, so they know where to send the troops
They will be bringing their muscle power back to the eastern suburbs again tomorrow.
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