80pc of Christchurch without water

Injured residents are tended to in the carpark of a 24 hour surgery on Bealey Ave in Christchurch after the 6.3 earthquake. Photo / Simon Baker

Around 80 per cent of Christchurch remains without water tonight following yesterday's devastating earthquake.

Christchurch Civil Defence and Emergency Management (CDEM) has urged people to stay at home and travel only if absolutely essential.

Many workplaces and all schools would remain closed until the weekend, CDEM said.

With 80 per cent of the city without a water supply authorities advised people to conserve water by not washing or flushing their toilets and to collect water in buckets when it rained.

Water should be boiled.

Where to find fresh water

There were 14 locations across the city where people could get fresh water, including six schools, and there would be nine further sites where people could collect boiled water from 6am tomorrow. There were 34 water tankers coming to the city tomorrow.

Power had been restored to a little over 60 per cent of the Christchurch area with progress was slow in the eastern suburbs due damage to the network and roads.

Assessing the damage to the electricity network would take "some days" as much of the network was underground.

Welfare centres

Welfare centres were providing people with blankets, food and sanitation.

The welfare centre at Hagley Park had reached capacity and was rerouting people to a centre at Cowles Stadium which opened today.

Burnside High had accepted 700 people and Waimakariri District Council had set up a welfare centre at the Baptist Church in East Belt.

Civil Defence was working to open more welfare centres and one at Pioneer Recreation Centre was expected to open soon.

By midday tomorrow 220 search and rescue (USAR) personnel would be deployed in the city and as any many as 700 USAR personnel could be deployed within the next 48 hours.

Council and volunteers were working to clear silt off roads and there were a large number of potholes and washouts across the city. There were four teams checking essential buildings, including supermarkets, malls and petrol stations, for damage.

Business and building owners were advised to stay away from the extensively damaged CBD, but engineers would be begin to assess how damaged buildings were in the next few days.

- NZPA