Deborah Coddington: The world speaks as one: Today, we're all Cantabrians

Destruction in Manchester Street in Christchurch's CBD after the second earthquake. Photo / Brett Phibbs

How longer can this go on for Christchurch people? The Prime Minister talks of getting through, but a community has suffered five months of earthquake shocks, like water torture. The psychological effect is unimaginable.

One piece of footage was a metaphor for a city of utter despair, and brought tears, which undoubtedly everyone shed this week for Christchurch.

It was of a woman who'd fled a building when the quake struck, into a park, then looked back at her city. She was attractive, well-groomed. You could tell she'd taken care to dress nicely that Tuesday morning. But what did all that matter at 12.51pm when the garden city was flung back and forth like a basket of precious china in the jaws of a digger, with much the same effect?

She turned, looked back at her city and ignoring her own well-being, broke down and bawled her eyes out. It was harrowing. Her face showed every heartache these beleaguered people have endured since September; picking up pieces, trying to live as normally as possible. But suddenly out of nowhere came a big one in the middle of the day, and nothing made sense any more.

But her reaction didn't just portray pain of the past; she revealed the huge scale of work to be done before this humpty dumpty would be put back together again. If ever.

JUST A couple of weeks ago my mother went to Napier to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Hawke's Bay earthquake. My parents were both survivors and we were raised on terrifying stories about this disaster. My childhood nightmares consisted of being trapped under rafters and burned alive, falling down cliffs amid boulders, or swallowed alive by holes in the ground.

So I still don't understand why anyone who's been through terrible trauma like this makes an annual trek to relive the sheer awfulness of it all with fellow refugees.

As kids we hear these stories, but we don't expect it to happen again in our lifetime. I watch Civil Defence directorSuddenly we're hearing it's not just the beautiful old buildings the nation's lost, like the cathedral. John Hamilton calmly brief media and I wonder if he, too, is remembering childhood horror stories.

Raised near me in Hawke's Bay, he probably heard similar earthquake reminiscences.

The same ones we're hearing today, of people trapped in buildings which are on fire.

Tales of limbs being amputated so survivors can be pulled from the rubble. Babies in mothers' arms who lived while their mothers were killed by falling bricks.

Desperate families waiting for news of those we know, a friend trapped in the Canterbury Television Building. On Tuesday night I repeatedly phoned a good friend's cellphone - he's known to be elusive, but he always takes my calls.

My anxiety increased as the calls went straight to message, but 24 hours later he called back and I sobbed with relief.

He described streets littered with dead bodies. A multi-storied hotel on a 10-degree angle. Spending the night sleeping on his couch rocked by massive after-shocks. We both wonder how much more his business colleagues will endure.

My daughter in London phoned in anguish. Of course she knows we're all okay but when New Zealanders live overseas and wake up to news like this they're devastated, disbelieving. Like when the Wahine disaster occurred, and a New Zealand judge heard the news on radio in North America and rang the station to remonstrate they'd got it totally wrong - no ferries sink in New Zealand with such loss of life.

Suddenly we're hearing it's not just the beautiful old buildings the nation's lost, like the cathedral, and the Lyttelton Timeball building. New buildings have collapsed in on themselves and the workers within. How awful it must be for the rescuers, hearing the tapping and cries of the people alive inside, wanting to rush in and pull them out, but with a toppling mangled mess around them.

Then there were the two volunteer rescuers interviewed, their faces black with horror, who'd had to inspect cars flattened by debris and found people crushed to death inside.

This, as Mayor Bob Parker said, "is not going to be a happy picture".

What can those of us who live elsewhere do? Give until it hurts.

www.redcross.org.nz/donate.