Wanganui's Maori Wardens have finally returned home after spending almost two months helping with the Christchurch earthquake recovery.
Fourteen Whanganui Maori Wardens were deployed to help in Christchurch after a national call to all Maori Wardens went out following the February 22 earthquake.
Whanganui Maori Wardens chairman Te Reo Hemi said two
waves of local wardens travelled to Christchurch after the quake, the first leaving a week after it hit.
They, along with wardens from all over the country, returned home this week.
Community and Voluntary Sector minister Tariana Turia thanked the "unsung heroes" for their efforts.
Mr Hemi, who left for Christchurch in the first wave of helpers, said Christchurch was "devastating".
The lack of clean drinking water and flushing toilets there brought home the things that they took for granted, he said.
There were port-a-loos lining the streets of some areas, and just one or two to cover the whole street in other areas.
In some places, the broken sewage pipes had leaked up through to the street, he said.
In other areas, the roads were like a "rollercoaster", and liquefaction had deposited sludgy sand up to people's living-room windows in some places.
Mr Hemi said he and the other wardens went door-knocking around the suburbs, including Aorangi, New Brighton, Bexley and Linwood, asking people if they needed assistance, and offering food and water.
"A lot of people just wanted a hug." he said.
In lot of cases, they were the first people that they had seen.
Mr Hemi said a lot of people took the attitude that something had happened and knew they needed to get on with it.
It was the elderly that affected them the most. A lot of them hadn't seen any sort of agency until they turned up, he said.
As they went door-to-door, the team met a couple who had lost a baby in the earthquake. Both burst into tears and the woman wanted a hug, so everyone in the team gave her one, he said.
Staying about an 60-minute drive out of town, they were lucky not to feel any aftershocks at night.
It seemed that a lot of the streets they visited had a lot of empty houses, where people had left town to get away from the aftershocks, he said.
Mr Hemi said that as time went on, people started to feel like maybe it was over, but then there was another 5.3 magnitude earthquake, which caused liquefaction and flooding to recur in some suburbs.
The Maori Wardens are on standby, ready to return if called.
