Thoughts, hearts, and prayers...

I haven't really been sure what to say, or how to address, what has been happening in Japan the past few days. We are of course still recovering from our own devastating earthquake here at the bottom of the world, and now our friends in Japan have also suffered a terrible, terrible tragedy.

Although New Zealand and Japan fought on opposing sides in World War Two, and have different perspectives on things like whaling and nuclear power, as a country and people we have a good, friendly relationship. Both my hometown of Richmond, and nearby Nelson, each have great 'sister city' relationships with cities in Japan. We have a Japanese Gardens in Nelson created to celebrate the relationship. I studied Japanese for three years at High School. Several Japanese exchange students came to Nelson each year. Some people I know have studied, worked, or taught English in Japan (I was considering the latter myself a few years ago). Many New Zealanders travel to or work there (including several of our rugby players). One of our greatest All Blacks, John Kirwan, is the coach of the Japanese national rugby team.

New Zealand and Japan are also both island nations, of similar geographic size, sitting on 'the Pacific Ring of Fire', so we're both all too familiar with earthquakes and their effects. But that doesn't make the sudden devastation that we've both recently suffered any easier to bear.

To see such a lively country, packed with tradition, modernity, and natural beauty, suffering, hurts my heart. The Christchurch situation was and continues to be very tough to bear, and now the numbers in Japan are just staggering (we may be the same size geographically, but Japan of course is far, far, far more densely populated than New Zealand), thanks to an earthquake followed by a tsunami and now the risk of nuclear disaster.

More than 500,000 people have been evacuated from tsunami-ravaged areas of Japan as authorities try to avert meltdowns at three nuclear reactors. Officials now believe at least 10,000 people were killed in one area, Miyagi, alone following Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 10-metre high tsunami.

Even though we are still in the recovery phase here in New Zealand ourselves, we've sent specialist Urban Search and Rescue teams to Japan to help out. It's just so sad that we are now reciprocating Japan's own generosity towards us in our hour of need, so very soon.

You can stay up to date with the Japanese situation here.

Christchurch Writers' Festival: watch this space

As many of you will no doubt have heard, a massive earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand's second most populated city, in the early hours of Saturday morning. Fortunately, due to the timing of the quake (which I understand was a touch stronger and shallower - ie more dangerous - than the Haiti quake earlier this year that killed 230,000 people), the earthquake strengthening and building standards in force in New Zealand, the speed of response of our emergency services and Civil Defence, and the general actions of many everyday Cantabrians, the (in places severe) damage was largely confined to property and infrastruture, rather than human casualties. We got very, very lucky.

Thank you for the messages of concern from overseas. I now live in Auckland, so was well away from the earthquake, but I went to University in Christchurch, so have many friends there. Fortunately all are safe and well, although several have damaged houses.

Some of you are also no doubt wondering what this means for The Press Christchurch Writers' Festival, which was scheduled to be held in the Christchurch CBD (one of the worst-affected areas) from Thursday to Sunday this week. As I've said previously, the biennial Festival had a truly terrific programme this year, with more than 80 writers of all types featuring in more than 50 great events over the four days. In terms of crime fiction, there was to be plenty on the plate, including of course the inaugural Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel.

Right now, I'm not sure of the Festival's status. I understand that at least one of the venues (the Repertory Theatre, pictured above - photo by Iain McGregor of The Press) has been badly damaged and will be unusable. I understand the Board of the Festival are meeting soon to determine what decisions should be made with regards to the planned events. I will let you know as soon as I know anything more.

You can see more pictures of the effects of the earthquake here, and there are also places to donate online to the Christchurch earthquake recovery - the NZ Herald has listed various ways to donate to legitimate relief organisations here.