"What Are You Doing In OUR Town?"

A group of visitors to Kawakawa’s iconic Hundertwasser toilets got rather more than a ‘traditional Kiwi welcome’ as they visited the facility late Tuesday afternoon. A couple of (local?) thugs decided to beat and rob them.

The assault was covered by the Northern Advocate, which said that the group was on a scavenger hunt, for which one of the tasks was to be photographed outside of the ‘world famous’ public convenience.
As the photo was being snapped a man and woman approached the group of Auckland university students and began to harangue them.

One of the local police officers told the press:

“Both asked the group, “What are you doing in our town?”, before the man held one of the male victims up by his T-shirt and punched him in the head.
Meanwhile, the woman took the camera from one of the female students and pushed another to the ground, where she kicked her several times. She then turned her attention to the last female in the group and punched her twice in the head.
The male offender then tried to punch the second male student, which was followed by a scuffle on the ground, Mr Raitt said…
One was described as a male Maori, about 18 to 20-years-old, skinny and with short black hair. The other was a 16 to 18-year-old female Maori, also described as skinny, with long black hair tied up in a pony tail…” more here

Police are appealing to the public for help in catching the two thugs.

We note that the identities and nationalities of the victims has not been released to the press, from this we infer that they were probably international students and the local authorities may be keen to minimise any global interest the muggings may attract.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that innocent tourists have been attacked and robbed whilst visiting Northland, as any reader of this blog will know. Other posts about crime in the ‘lawless north’ may be found here.

You may recall that in May three young French tourists were beaten and robbed as they camped on the roadside in near Mangamuka, east of Kaitaia, by two men posing as police officers.

We hear that little progress has been made in apprehending those responsible and the trail seems to have gone cold since the victims returned to France. Is the message getting out that international visitors are a soft target in Northland?

At the time of the Mangamuka assaults we said that Northland seemed to be a particularly risky place for visitors, with many of the aggravated robberies on tourists  overly violent and aggressive. See French tourists thought they were going to die.

See also:

“The Land Of Misadventure” – …”Northland has a high level of unemployment, a lot of low- income people and there are criminal groups targeting tourists at popular spots. Locals get robbed as well, but the tourists offer richer pickings for the criminals.
Though locals may lose their shoes, cellphone and the small sum of cash in their pockets, tourists were known to carry a lot more money, have expensive cameras and sometimes iPods and laptops. The latest attack and robbery of the three Frenchmen was typical…” Dom Post

Related posts “Tourist Beaters Up Un-Maori” and “French Tourists Back in Northland to Help Catch Attackers“

A good reason perhaps to give the region a wide berth until its crime problem is sorted out once and for all?

Also in the news today – Unemployed Kaitaia teenager Jameel Job, 17 is to be sentenced today for the brutal murder of semi-retired school teacher Barbara Julian, whom he bashed to death during a home invasion in Kaitaia, Northland, in November 2009.

News reports at the time stated that the 70 year old grandmother had told her niece she was thinking about leaving town because people in the street were frightening her. See also: “It could have happened at any house” 

f you’re planning to take a holiday, or migrate to New Zealand be sure to find out about the risks before you leave. If you are British you may wish to read the travel advisory issued about New Zealand by the Foreign and Commonwealth office here.

Some other recent tourist attacks and robberies in Northland include:
A family of Swiss tourists that were assaulted and racially abused in Kaitaia

Anke Kuballa and Marc Busch from Germany who were robbed in Whangarei
Two German tourists attacked in Paihia
Two American tourists were robbed at Shipwreck Bay in Northland

Asian woman, (probably Japanese) age 22, raped in her room by 2 teenagers in a home invasion in Opotiki

Three Chinese tourists attacked and robbed at Te paki, 90 Mile Beach, Northland
French tourist Anthony Cressend, beaten and robbed at campsite in Ahipara
French tourist (male) raped at gunpoint near Opotiki,

American campers Patrick Dykstra and Kelsey McGinley beaten and robbed at Whangarei Falls

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Paul Henry Suspended

NZPA News has tweeted:

TVNZ has suspended Breakfast host Paul Henry without pay. He will return on air on Oct 18.

This looks like a token effort by TVNZ to take the heat off themselves after they failed to publicly condemn Henry’s comments yesterday.


For more read
Racist Henry digs deeper hole
Paul Henry, man or hobbit?


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Christchurch Curfew, Aftershocks - Update

A curfew will be in place in central Christchurch and Kaiapoi from 7pm today until 7am tomorrow to control looting and civil unrest, the central area will also be cordoned off.

Power is slowly being restored to the city, sparking off a number of fires in buildings damaged in the 7.1 quake.

The two major concerns facing emergency teams and residents are damage to underground services (water supplies and sewerage infrastructure) which may take weeks to repair and hazardous buildings weakened by the quake which have yet to be assessed or made safe.

Around 20 aftershocks have been felt since the initial quake. Residents are advised to boil all drinking water for 3 minutes.

Casualties in the disaster have been mercifully light, due mostly to the timing of the quake that occurred whilst most people were still asleep.

A reporter on Sky News said that people were unprepared for the quake and had no emergency plans in place or disaster provisions, many supermarkets have been subject to panic buying with two hour long queues at one store.

Earlier damage estimates have been revised and are now estimated to amount to 2 billion NZ dollars. Some buildings have been reported to have sunk into the ground by about a metre, probably due to liquefaction of the ground and sand volcanoes (see photo above for an example) have appeared in some places.

Liquefaction maps for Christchurch may be found HERE dated October 2004.The city's Civil Defence Emergency Management Arrangements may also be found on that link.

Christchurch is zoned into three areas for liquefaction - high in red, moderate in yellow and low in green. Much of the central and eastern part of the city is coloured red.

Aftershocks
Aftershocks have been going on most of the day, most recently (source):
* 7:03 pm  Magnitude: 4.6,  Depth: 20 km,  10 km west of Christchurch
* 6:54 pm  Magnitude: 4.3, Depth: 12 km,  10 km south-west of Christchurch
* 6:38 pm Magnitude: 3.8,   Depth: 12 km,  20 km south-east of Darfield
* 6:35 pm  Magnitude: 3.8,  Depth: 5 km,  20 km south-east of Darfield
*  5:07 pm Magnitude: 3.7,  Depth: 10 km, 20 km west of Christchurch
*4:55 pm Magnitude: 5.4,  Depth: 10 km, 10 km south-west of Darfield
* 4:48 pm  Magnitude: 4.3,  Depth: 15 km, 20 km south-west of Christchurch

Update:
Extra police have been drafted in to provide protection in Christchurch as night falls, according to Stuff.co.nz more than 80 officers have been brought into the city and the mayor has asked the army to also provide assistance, more here.

One British resident in Christchurch has just written this on an expats site:

Was woken up at 4.35 due to the violence of the quake, and have to say its the most frightened I've ever been in my life. The house was rocking incredibly, so much so that I'm still amazed its still standing, yet I had little damage apart from smashed crockery and ornaments and the living room looking like we'd been burgled.
The rest of the city hasnt been so lucky, with considerable damage elsewhere. The chinese take away across from me has lost a wall, as has a restaurant further down the road.
Some of the roads in the area have been badly damaged, and wont be passable for days or weeks, and from what I understand the river rose over its banks in some areas to.
The CBD is no-go area, with a curfew and state of emergency in force, and just to kick us when we're down its forecast 130kmh winds and torrential rain, which I'd imagine could compromise some of the precarious buildings around the city.
We're getting constant tremors, and have just had one while I've been typing, and the experts seem to think one of them is likely to hit a magnitude of 6 before we're done.
On a slightly more light hearted note I think I need to brush up my emergency management skills. In my (wine hangover affected) early morning panic I remembered the need to get out of the house and to take something to keep warm and some food, only to come to my senses sat in my car with a pillow case and a jar of gherkins.

Other posts about the quake
Christchurch New Zealand Quake Gets its own Wikipedia Page
Photos of the Christchurch Earthquake
New Zealand in Shock After Massive Quake - reports from the public about how the quake affected them

Massive Earthquake in Christchurch, State of Civil Emergency Declared

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