Air Partner on standby for New Zealand earthquake

With thousands of Kiwis and tourists requiring rescue and parts of the country under a state of emergency following Tuesday’s massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake, Air Partner’s Emergency Planning Division is on standby to move people, freight and aid in or out of New Zealand.

With a global aviation footprint in aircraft chartering, the U.K.-based aviation services group is able to provide aircraft and planning for a multiplicity of manmade and natural disasters.

According to the New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergency Management, helicopters are already being used to extract tourists and locals from cut-off communities in the Hurunui and Kaikoura districts. Photos from the affected areas show landslides that have come down steep hillsides, burying vital road and rail links to remote towns along the northeast coast of the country’s South Island. So far, local authorities reported at least two fatalities caused by the quake.

New Zealand sits atop several active fault lines that periodically trigger massive earthquakes, such as 2011’s quake near Christchurch, which killed 185 people and injured thousands more.  Air Partner responded to the previous earthquake with a 747 freighter flight carrying sanitation equipment.

In Kaikoura, there have been more than 1,200 aftershocks and, so far, per Radio New Zealand, pressure is mounting as fuel and supplies dwindle. Civil Defense authorities told the media that only three days of fresh water remains.

Richard Smith, head of products at Air Partner, said, “Our Ops24 team are closely monitoring the situation in New Zealand, and we are on high alert should any of our clients need assistance. As always, we are ready to go at a moment’s notice, if needed to.”