Stock comes first for Dannevirke local farming at earthquake's epicentre

Dannevirke's Scott Mancer and Chloe Turton

Despite everyone rallying around to help, Monday morning's 7.5 earthquake has been tough for farmers in his area of North Canterbury, Dannevirke's Todd Mancer says.

Todd and his partner Chloe Turton live on the road identified as the epicentre of the quake and when it hit just after midnight Monday, the ferocity of the monster quake left them shattered. "At first it was violent and then the intensity slowed, but the quakes kept on going," Todd told the Dannevirke News on Tuesday afternoon.

"I was getting really worried when the shaking continued on and Chloe isn't even a fan of small quakes. Monday's aftershocks were pretty bad too."

More than 1500 aftershocks have been recorded since the massive magnitude-7.5 earthquake.

Todd, who works on Leslie Hills Farm, 10 minutes from Waiau, said his main concern was for the 1200 cows.

"We were hoping to have power on by the end of day," he said on Tuesday. "But we've still no water and to get water to the cows we're going to have to cut fences and let them into the irrigation race."

On Tuesday, with temperatures soaring to 26C and strong winds blowing from the north east, Todd and fellow farmers' main concern was the health of their stock.

"It's important to have happy cows," he said.

Earthquake damage was visible around the farm and Todd said he could see "a fair bit of slipping on the cliffs around here".

"The old homestead on the farm, one of the main homes in the basin, is in a bad way and the house next door a write-off."

Farmers are checking up on each other and helping where they can, but Todd said it was a case of first things first.

"We've got to make sure our stock are all fine first."

With cellphone coverage restored on Tuesday, Scott was looking forward to the electricity coming on, but said he had no idea when the water supply would return.

"Even when that happens we'll have to check our irrigation systems before we can use them," he said.

"Luckily we've had Fonterra collect our milk, but we do have a collection guarantee with them which means if they can't get in we still get paid."