EDITORIAL: Tragedy so hard to understand

I WAS at the airport on Thursday afternoon feeling slightly uneasy.
The thing about this job is you often have to pursue people who, because of circumstances which have turned their lives upside down, are not always agreeable to the idea of being approached by a stranger holding a pad and pen.
I was waiting for the 1.40pm flight from Christchurch to Napier and it was not difficult to identify those also waiting for it, but they were waiting for friends and families.
Loved ones whose lives were derailed on Tuesday afternoon by a fault line we all figured had done its worst.
They'll never be the same.
Every rumbling truck or the slightest creak or shake driven by a strong wind will bring it all rushing back. It's a horrible memory; a terrible legacy to carry.
A couple of women standing there watching the Air New Zealand flight roll to a stop began to cry.
Tears of joy, relief.
"Hell," I thought to myself as I saw the faces as they walked into the terminal to welcoming arms .
"What have you been through?"
But I'd already voiced that answer ... hell.
I spoke to a few people and they were happy to talk. One wasn't and I could understand that.
When the place you grew up in, and the place where you built a home and a family, is no longer a geographically friendly place it must be heartbreaking.
We are detached from it here, as is the rest of the country. It's hard to imagine. Impossible to imagine.
But some of those faces I saw gave me a firm idea of what they had been through, and of the long march ahead for them, in a direction they themselves have no idea of yet.
The tragedy, when you see the faces, is as wretched as it gets. But then you feel proud and buoyed at the sight of toiling searchers and volunteers, exhausted but bound and determined to get the job done.
Then I got angry, because I heard how some people had reportedly dressed as emergency personnel to get into sites and buildings where they could steal things. Looters and burglars striking the already stricken. A lower form of life does not exist. A loaf of bread or some water, you could understand. But these thieves were going for belongings ... in abandoned houses and businesses.
Yes, that's when I get angry, and anger leads me to ask what is probably a terrible thing ... but why, instead, were the good, the young, the innocent and the devoted taken?