Christchurch earthquake: Rescue crews a united nations of compassion

The Japanese Disaster Relief Team. Photo / Sarah Ivey

On the first night of the earthquake you could pick your way through shattered glass and lumps of concrete along Gloucester St to where the cathedral has tumbled down.

A week later a different strangeness has begun.

By day regular bus loads of reporters, photographers and television crews are driven through for a strictly policed tour of the destruction and splashes of red, orange and blue overalls are everywhere as international rescue workers toil in the rubble.

At Cathedral Square are the Welsh, hot and sweaty in the searing sun in their hard hats and overalls.

Near the CTV building, now a receding pile of rubble but still with bodies inside, a Chinese worker comes out to a makeshift cordon for a brief word to a Chinese film crew.

A photographer translates: "The young man say the situation very difficult work but they have a good try."

A dozen Japanese workers walk by single-file in their hard hats and orange and blue overalls.

They look clean of the powdery dust which is deposited on every surface, including overalls, so are probably the next shift heading to work.

At the Pyne Gould Corporation building British rescue workers have set up camp near a huge Nikau Contractors demolition truck.

This is harsh work but the 61 British workers, like so many of the international teams, don't hesitate to help not just New Zealand but countries around the world ravaged by natural disasters.

These men are from the West Midlands Fire Service and left their homes within two hours of getting the call, arriving in Christchurch on Friday morning.

Iain McNeil is one of three doctors with the medical team.

He is here to help tend to survivors, though chances of finding any are very slim now, and also to take care of these men.

This is arduous and exhausting work - the team recovered four bodies yesterday and it is thought 20 more are still inside - so Mr McNeil keeps a keen eye out for stress.

"What we're doing is obviously a fairly unpleasant task at times," he says.

"And it's a dangerous task, too, so there's a high risk they're going to get injured so we've got three doctors and two paramedics with the team."

They work in small teams, just six or seven people per team, so they all know one another well and can see signs of distress.

"We watch each other and make sure everybody's okay. If somebody seems to be struggling we'll sit down and have a chat with them and see where we go."

Mr McNeil nods at the enormity of the stress this whole city will suffer and says people need to talk when they're down, use their family and friends to take the edge off.

"It's just unimaginable," he says.

"I can't imagine what it's like for these poor folk. You've just got to sort of hang on in there and help each other."

Even years down the line people should watch out for the symptoms and get help, he says.

Mr McNeil turns to leave to go back to his men but smiles when asked why he and all these other international teams of workers leave their own families to travel across the world to slog away on such a hot day in such horrible circumstances.

He really doesn't know, he says.

"It's just what we do. We give a damn. But I really don't know. If I worked it out I probably wouldn't do it any more."