New Zealand’s postal services were disrupted at the weekend due to Saturday’s earthquake inChristchurch, the largest city on the country’s South Island.
The quake, which measured 7.1 on the Richter scale, badly damaged hundreds of buildings in thecity centre, but no one was killed and there were only a small number of serious injuries,according to media reports.
New Zealand Post suspended Saturday mail delivery in the immediate aftermath of the quake inChristchurch and in surrounding areas of the Canterbury region, while PostShops in affected areasalso remained closed.
However, yesterday NZ Post announced that postal services will be operating as normal from today(Monday) in quake-affected areas in Canterbury apart from areas where access is restricted. Themain mail processing centre in Christchurch, which shut down immediately following the quake, isfully operational again and the processing backlog has been cleared.
In response to the earthquake, a special Kiwibank account for New Zealand Red Cross CanterburyEarthquake Appeal was set up for people across the country being able to donate money at more than300 PostShop stores.
New Zealand Post Group CEO Brian Roche said the money would go directly to supporting the NewZealand Red Cross emergency relief operation. “Kiwis can do their bit by utilising our nationalnetwork of PostShops to make a donation and help the affected people of Canterbury deal with thetough times they’re enduring,” he said.
