Karen from Auckland here.   We have not been physically affected in the North Island, but we have family in Christchurch.  Thankfully they are safe, although their house has suffered more damage, but hopefully not to the stage that it will need to be rebuilt.  Our nephew was working repairing one of the high rise bnuildings which had been damaged in a previous quake - he is vowing to never go back to working on another one - he was so scared.   The country has been offered so much help from overseas with search and rescue teams from Australia, England and Japan.   There will be more deaths to be reported as time goes on - this morning's report was that there were bodies lying in the street awaiting collection - the rescuers are working to a plan so that they can identify where people were found.  There are already amazing tales of survival - and people recounting the fear they felt when it happened.   It seems that "down under" over the past six months both New Zealand and Australia has had our share of tragedies.   Karen