Bad News about the Canterbury Museum, NZ earthquake

[Dan Chure <danchure@easilink.com>]

This was posted on paleonet.  I pass it on as it might be of interest to 
members of these lists and there seems to be little information about 
the damage to the Canterbury Museum in the news.

Dan

From: *Ricardo Palma* <RicardoP@tepapa.govt.nz 
<mailto:RicardoP@tepapa.govt.nz>>
Date: Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 6:23 PM
Subject: Bad news about the Canterbury Museum


*This was received from our ornithologist.  He happened to be talking to 
Paul Scofield (Curator of birds in Canty) just when the quake struck*:

<< I spoke with Paul Scofield and he says that the museum is badly 
damaged.  Paul's big bookshelf fell over him but, because he was on the 
phone to me, he was in a part of his office where a pillar stopped it 
from crushing him.  He had to crawl out of his office.  The exhibitions 
are in total disarray with many shaking apart and the glass in the big 
display cases having 'exploded'.  I don't know about the structural 
integrity of the building but part of the facade around the front door 
has fallen off and Rolleston (at least his statue) has fallen on his 
head.  To make matters worse, the sprinklers came on which means that 
the collections are wet.  Of course no-one has been able to check any 
collections and won't be able too for ages which means collections may 
start going mouldy.  It seems certain that the museum will be shut to 
the public for months.  Staff like Paul are simply leaving the city with 
their family until the water systems in the city are back up and 
running.  Additionally the museum server is completely out of action so 
no staff will be able to access their work e-mails, even from outside 
the museum.  But the good and remarkable news is that no staff or 
visitors were hurt apparently. >>

*Greetings,*
*Ricardo*