Kaliburg completes damage assessment following quake
Official Death toll reaches 6400 in Capital, K11.2 Bn in damageKaliburg, Ananto
March 16, 4892Fires rages across residential areas in Kaliburg and Port Devon areas for a week following quakeThe aftermath of the Kaliburg Earthquake are still felt across the capital. This home of more than 7 million people has become a ghost town as most residents have opted to evacuate the capital for other parts of the Republic as emergency services, damage assessment teams and the Socialist Party's Militia have taken control of the streets. The President of the Republic, Reynaldo Carrangus, has declared a State of Emergency, and has activated additional resources from other parts of the Republic to come to Kaliburg and begin the cleanup.
"Today, we begin to rebuild Kaliburg," said President Carrangus. "It will be a long and arduous process, and for those displaced by this disaster, we know it will seem like an eternity, but we wish to report that aerial reconnaissance shows that we have taken our first steps toward moving forward. The fires which have raged unchecked in our residential areas and our commercial zones for a week now seem to be buring themselves out, and the firefighters, working tirelessly to contain them and prevent them from spreading have gained the upper hand over the blazes. We are now in the process of extinguishing the last major hot spots and will finally begin to search for survivors in earnest over the entire city, by, I think they said, this afternoon..."
Early search and rescue teams, accompanied by highly trained sniffer dogs, who are trained to find people stranded in high altitudes in Neveras, have been brought to the capital to help aid the rescue team's in their work in finding survivors. The dogs have a keener sense of smell and hearing than the people do and serve to amplify calls for help, or to identify spots where the victims did not survive. One such location was the home of a young man, Abdul Khan, in the Zappa City District north of the Port was partially destroyed when an overpass of the spur of the National Highway which runs into Kaliburg collapsed. The other residents of the house escaped unharmed, but it seems that the overpass caught the man's bedroom, utterly flattening him and everything immediately around him.
Another loss to the Republic has been the Premier. Her home is in a badly burned section of Imperial City where structural damage provided kindling for unchecked fires for more than 5 days following the quake. While the Premier's house was not itself burned, it was collapsed by a nearby natural gas explosion following the earth quake itself, and it is more than likely that the home was previously either weakened or demolished by the earthquake. A spotter dog was able to locate the mortal remains of the Premier, who died in her home with her husband and toddler son. The Republic will schedule a day of mourning for the Lost Premier next week, and all Republican Flags will fly at half mast to honor the more than 6400 confirmed dead in the Nation's Capital.
As Kaliburg begins to recover, there were reports earlier this week of a tsunami caused by the quake striking out as far as Keris,
hitting the Dolgavan coastline and wiping out several low lying villages. Kalistani officials sought to reach out to the Dolgavans to ask if there was any way Kalistan could lighten the burden of this country who now shares our tragedy. "Given our location and the fact that we are going into the rainy, but warmish Spring months, we have a lot of emergency aid which would not be appropriate for Kalistan which may be offered to Dolgava. We now share a bond of mutual suffering, and I think with mutual aid, we can persevere together," said President Carrangus. There has been no word just yet on whether Dolgava will require or accept any Kalistani aid for their Tsunami victims.
"We have also gotten offers of support from Lodamun so far, and we are attempting to work out the details of how this aid would be delivered and what it would consist of," said President Carrangus. "It is still very early in the process, and we are going to be cleaning up for a long time." The President said the Republic will focus primarily on reconstruction assistance, and will disincentivize resettlement. "We eventually want our people to return home," said the President.
The migration of refugees from the City while clean up begins has begun to wane now that most people who do not need to stay in the capital, either because they are essential to recovery, or have no where else to go, have left. "The Capital City, like most large cities, has a moderate problem with homelessness and joblessness. The Republican Service Program has gone around and attempted to locate these individuals who are stuck here in Capital and cannot leave, and have invited them to join the clean up efforts across the Capital. We have enlisted more than 5000 people to assist with search and rescue and damage assessment teams, and as a result, our manpower resources in identifying and assessing needs on a block by block basis is well met."
To help maintain security in the capital, the Socialist Party's Militia has been brought into town, and has established security bivouacs in some of the worst hit neighborhoods. "The Militia camps exist as patrol bases," said the President. "Since police and fire resources are stressed by this catastrophe, the Militia is here to fill in as an auxiliary. They do not have the power to arrest or detain, but they do have the power to patrol along with teams in other capacities, discourage looting and other sorts of crime by presence, and generally give those workers who are trying to start the work of recovery security to know that they can continue their work in all conditions." The Militia has also been stationed in other areas as well across the capital to serve as patrol units, reporting crimes in less damaged neighborhoods to police units.
Power is still mainly provided by portable generators, which are a blessing for most, but a curse for some. One of the buildings in Zappa City that was utterly demolished by the quake was the operations facilities of KRTVN TV 7, known as M7, the station that plays music videos, has music related talk shows, and has a popular morning and evening show which broadcasts throughout the Republic. When the Quake hit, M7 was playing
Tonya X's 4887 video for "Bouncin", a thick bass RF track that scored some moderate success at the peak of KME in the Republic. Unfortunately, those watching the station at the time, in this early morning hour, noticed that following the end of the video, it began again. KRTVN reps have worked out the likely reason for the issue: Apparently, the station programmer who was putting the day's programming into the computer, was preparing to execute a new manifest, when the earthquake hit, causing the building to collapse on top of the engineer. The demolished building, however, powered by an external generator, which is, itself geothermicly powered, continued to operate and broadcast the Tonya X video, having no new instructions to execute.
"Seriously," said one viewer in Vrassa City, "I'm sorry for what happened in Kaliburg, but that video has got to go. It has been on a loop for like a week solid now, nothing but that video of Tonya X." The area around the M7 studios was so badly damaged that the building has not been able to be reached yet. "We hope to reslove the problem within a few days," said KRTVN, "but let's face it: A music video studio with a destroyed Shoutcast computer is certainly a lower priority than rescuing people. If you do not like the Tonya X video, we would suggest you simply avoid watching the station." Meanwhile, Tonya X has easily captured the Republican Record for most consecutive plays of the song, playing more than 3800 times since the earthquake hit nine days ago.
Almost as if to take people's mind off of the Tonya X situation, a local Rapper, Idris Olofuote, who is the Kalistani son of Ntoto immigrants to the Republic, said he is organizing a benefit concert for the Capital. "We're working with the GMHoF to get the show played there, so that we can raise some money for relief," said Olofuote. "So far we got La Sol to play, and we got some other hip hop acts too, and I think Brown Paper Bag, who was really happy to play the concert, have all signed on. Oh and also, The Gang is going to play, they were the first ones to be like 'Yo whatever you need man,' when they first heard about the show. We want to make it the Sound of Kalistan, to let everyone know we are all together, and all want to support the relief efforts for the Capital. But the show is going to be dope."
Up and coming underground MC, Idris Olofuote, organizing a Benefit for the Capital concert for late MarchOlofuote, an underground MC from Lolla in Kaliburg said his neighborhood is still largely in tact. "You look at a lot of these neighborhoods, especially in the old City, and they look like God just took a wrecking ball to the place. And then there are other neighborhoods like mine, who were shaken and some windows were broken, but its almost like we weren't hit nearly as hard. So we're gonna band together with as many awesome musicians as we can get and do this relief show and open up phones for donations and broadcast it all over the world!" Olofuote said he is working out the final details on the show logistics. "We are aiming for last week of March, so we can start collecting this money and getting it to the National Service Program to help rebuild," said Olofuote.
Recovery efforts are just beginning in the capital, and it may be years before all things are fully restored.