Kerre Woodham: The best of human nature

Christchurch residents have endured long days and nights away from their home comforts. Photo / Janna Dixon

The stories that have come out in the days following the devastating quake on February 22 have highlighted the very best and worst of human nature.

I'm going to focus on the good - as the bad instances are a tiny minority. And, let's face it, even a killer 6.3 earthquake will not turn a moronic, anti-social, self-centred criminal into a Boy Scout.

But it can turn an ordinary prson into a hero. The earthquake has shown us that although there is not one universal response to a crisis, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

Like Ahsei Sopoaga, the father of five who heard cries for help and without a thought for his personal safety, hauled concrete masonry from buried bodies with his bare hands. His courage gave him strength that seemed almost superhuman.

Despite the risk of nearby buildings collapsing in the aftershocks, Sopoaga and a policeman kept going because they believed Jaime Gilbert was still alive.

Sadly he died of his injuries. But for Amy, Jaime's sister who was saved, and for the rest of Jaime's family, their grief is somewhat assuaged by the knowledge that heroic strangers did everything in their power to save him.

For some, taking charge is the first response. They gather together the shocked and the disoriented, work out a plan of action and follow it through.

John Haynes' calmness under pressure was extraordinary. Trapped on the 6th floor of the Forsyth Barr building, Haynes, a trained mountain guide, used ropes from an emergency kit he'd prepared after 9/11 to belay 13 people to safety with the help of lawyer Grant Cameron.

Others flee. Their first instinct is to run for their lives and get away from immediate danger, like former TVNZ staffer, Zara Potts. Her moving account of escaping her broken city is compelling in its raw fear and honesty.

None of us knows how we would react unless we have been tested and, by God, the people of Christchurch have been well and truly tested.

Many have fled. Seventy thousand people - a fifth of the population - have gone to Oamaru, Timaru, Dunedin and further afield. Many will be back but, for others, as a woman who had lived in Sumner for 60 years told me, their relationship with the city is over.

Those who remain are bearing up in conditions that are trying in the extreme - no water, no power and no working toilets.

For the most part, they have been stoic and resilient with a kind of war-time chipperness prevailing. The Battle of Portaloo, however, has been a pitched one. It has been raging over the airwaves with people from some of the poorer suburbs feeling that they have been forgotten and claiming that other, richer, suburbs are being privileged in the distribution of rare resources.

In this they've been gee-ed along by local MP Lianne Dalziel whose emotions got the better of her this week when she launched a political attack on John Key and Bob Parker for failing her constituents.

There was even anarchic talk of liberating portaloos where it was perceived there was an oversupply and redistributing them to where the need was seen to be greatest - a kind of khazi communism.

Some seemed to believe they were the only ones who had been affected by the disaster. One man rang me outraged that the EQC hadn't got back to him with a time and date to inspect his ravaged home - he'd rung them twice, he exclaimed in indignation.

The self-centredness is probably a coping mechanism. Although the scale and the enormity of the work that needs to be done is obvious to those of us outside the city, those trying to make sense of a world that has been turned upside down can only deal with their crisis, their disaster.

They can manage the micro - the macro is just too big.

But they must know by now that whatever they have to face, they won't have to face it alone. So many people have stepped up to the plate by organising fundraisers, donating goods and money and offering their homes as safe havens for traumatised residents. T-shirts bearing messages of support are being snapped up, with all proceeds going to Red Cross - I saw Dame Cath Tizard in the local supermarket wearing hers with pride.

Everyone wants to do their bit and let the people of Christchurch know that we'll be with them for the long haul.

Random acts of kindness are happening by the minute. A woman who left Christchurch with only the clothes she was standing up in was buying some emergency items in a Dunedin department store and found her bill paid by a stranger who wanted to help.

500Friends has organised 500 cartons of emergency supplies, adorned with notes and drawings and messages of support from the contributing families. The cartons will be shipped from Auckland to Rangiora in a donated container and the Rangiora Express will ensure that they are distributed to the people with the most desperate need.

Talkback radio has become like the Santa line. People ring, tell the country what they need and, abracadabra, there's someone at the end of the phone who will make it happen. From La-Z-Boys to plumbers to wheelchairs to suitcases, if people need it, others provide.

It's not just material goods they're providing. There are many people, living on their own, who can make it through the day but find the nights terrifying. It's dark, they have no power and, cruelly, the night seems to bring the worst of the aftershocks. When they have rung to say how frightened they are, people from all over the country have reached out and become phone friends.

New Zealanders have never been more united and more determined to help our shattered southern cousins rise from the smashed rubble of their broken city.