Source: Radio New Zealand
Bridge on Okuti Valley Road on Thursday. RNZ / Nate McKinnon
The Student Volunteer Army (SVA) has deployed 40 volunteers from the University of Canterbury to help clean up Banks Peninsula.
A state of emergency was declared in the region on Tuesday, after it was hammered by nearly six times the average monthly rainfall in just 48 hours.
The request for volunteers came from Civil Defence on Friday night.
Despite the academic year beginning last Monday, SVA president Johann Torres was overwhelmed by how many signed up.
“We’ve only just come back to uni so it’s quite, you know, it’s nice that we have so many volunteers quite mobile straight away and very keen to help.”
Slips and trees down across a road in Wainui, Banks Peninsula on Tuesday. Lawrence Smith
The SVA will be working alongside other groups, such as Taskforce Kiwi, focusing on clearing silt from properties.
“We’re working quite closely with Civil Defence and some other volunteer groups like Taskforce [Kiwi] and we’ve essentially gotten a list of properties that we’re going to work on.
We’re focusing mainly on shovelling and wheel-barrowing silt from properties who have been affected by the quite recent flooding.”
Although State Highway 75 and telecommunications had been restored residents were still busy cleaning up the damage to homes and businesses.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand