NZFirst's Ron Mark has suggested that the government send the Fire Service's Urban Search and Rescue Team to Pakistan to help dig people out of the rubble. It's a good idea, and one I wish he'd thought of earlier. Unfortunately, with the way these things go, by the time they get there, they'll be down to digging up corpses, with possibly one or two miraculous survivors to be dug out in front of the cameras. It'll still be helpful, but not as helpful as it would have been if we'd made the offer and sent them two days ago.
Which does rather raise the question of why the government didn't think of it two days ago. Surely the USAR team is on NZAID or MFAT's standard list of disaster recovery options they present to the government in a situation like this?
It'd be good practice for them too, when the big one finally hits NZ....
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