A year of tragedy both at home and overseas
Sunday, 26 December 2010
2010 is certainly a year few of us will forget.
It was a year in which disasters dominated the news and, unusually, we didn't watch them from afar. They happened right in our own backyard.
Most of us are still coming to terms with the Pike River Mine tragedy. Thirty-one men went into the mine that Friday afternoon in November, and after an explosion ripped through it, only two came out.
I'd been working in Christchurch that day and, first thing the next morning, I began reporting from Greymouth.
The town, as you'd imagine, was in a state of shock and over the next 48 hours became besieged by media from around the world.
Could the 29 miners still be alive? And if so, when were the rescue teams going to be able to get to them?
One of those questions was answered when a second explosion extinguished all hope the miners were alive.
That second explosion also ripped the guts out of a community which for days had been praying for a miracle.
I presented a two-hour 3News special that afternoon. It was impossible not to absorb the emotion of the town and, professionally, it was one of the toughest assignments I've ever had.
I remember at one stage, during an interview with Phil Goff, looking over and seeing the Greymouth Workingmen's Club flag being lowered to half-mast. It was an incredibly sad yet poignant moment.
Here are the other nine of my 10 biggest stories of 2010:
CHILE MINING COLLAPSE
Five weeks earlier the world had watched a similar disaster end in jubilation as 33 Chilean miners were freed from the San Jose gold and copper mine in Chile's northern Atacama Desert.
As the miners remained trapped for 69 days, we learnt about them and their families and loved ones.
We watched in awe as one by one, the miners climbed into a specially-designed steel capsule barely wider than a man's shoulders and took a 15-minute journey to freedom.
The meticulously planned rescue and the joyous reunions were watched live around the globe.
HAITI EARTHQUAKE
The year started tragically when on January 12, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. The epicentre was just 25km from the densely populated capital Port-Au-Prince.
From the get-go, this was always going to be a major disaster. I was actually on holiday at the time but, after a couple of quick calls to work, I was on a plane to Miami with my cameraman Michael `Dutchie' Lacoste.
On that same flight were relatives of Emily Sanson-Rejouis, a Nelson woman whose husband and two of her three children were killed when their apartment block collapsed.
I was at Miami airport when the Sanson family was reunited. It was a deeply sad and emotional time.
Of all the war zones and natural disasters I've covered, I don't think I've ever come across anything as bad as Haiti. Bodies were left on the footpath to be collected like trash and whole residential areas had been completely flattened.
An estimated 200,000 people were killed in the quake and more than two million left homeless.
In a makeshift camp in a city park, I found a five-year-old girl called Chedna, whose mother had been killed when their home was destroyed. She was being looked after by an aunty, who had lost her husband and 10-month-old son.
Chedna had a gaping wound in her leg the size of a cricket ball and an arm that had multiple breaks and had swollen to twice its normal size. A medic told me if she wasn't operated on that day she could lose both her leg and arm. We ended up taking her to hospital and staying with her until she had surgery. Chedna survived. She was lucky but you couldn't help but wonder how many other kids were out there in her situation but without the access to help we'd given her.
CANTERBURY QUAKE
The loss of life in the Haiti earthquake made us all the more thankful when an earthquake of similar magnitude struck Canterbury.
Despite it happening at the relatively dormant time of 4.35 on a Saturday morning, I still think it's a miracle no one was killed.
I grew up in Christchurch and most of my family still live there. I was woken by a text from my brother shortly after it happened and within a couple of hours had presented a live broadcast on TV3 from our Auckland studio. I then flew to Wellington and was taken by helicopter to Christchurch.
I couldn't believe the damage. Buildings and suburbs I knew well had been destroyed and people were wandering around in a state of disbelief. While I was reporting in Manchester Street, a building behind me exploded into flames.
Like the Pike River disaster, the Canterbury earthquake will continue to be a big story for some time to come and, as a footnote, I should say how amazingly generous New Zealanders have been donating more than $25 million to both causes. Quite incredible in a year of recession.
ICELAND ERUPTS
The eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano – that's certainly a lot easier to write than say – wreaked havoc across Europe in April, bringing air travel to a standstill. It's been reported the cost to airlines ran into the billions of dollars. On a lighter note, once the flying ban had been lifted, 3News was at Auckland airport to greet the first Air New Zealand flight out of London. Who should be among the first passengers off the plane and caught on camera but the normally media-shy Willie Apiata VC.
GULF OF MEXICO SPILL
It was a man-made disaster that dominated the news at the end of April when a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico blew up and created the biggest-ever oil slick in US waters.
By June the oil spill had landed on 200km of Louisiana's coast, with around 10,000 people helping with the clean-up.
The eco disaster provided one of the most memorable, if not appalling, quotes of the year from BP CEO Tony Hayward who said amid the crisis that, 'I'd like my life back'.
TROUBLE IN THAILAND
An on-going demonstration by anti-government protesters in Bangkok's central business district escalated into violence in May. The 'Red Shirts' movement loyal to former PM, exiled billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra had grown to around 5000 before the Thai government brought in army reinforcements and established roadblocks and checkpoints.
Violent clashes between the two groups were becoming more and more frequent until finally the 35,000-strong army launched an attack against the protestors' barricaded fortress.
I reported that day with my cameraman Dutchie. We'd travelled to Bangkok as 'tourists' to avoid the delay of having to apply for journalist visas. Unfortunately that meant we weren't able to take our flak jackets and helmets.
We found ourselves right in the thick of it and I remember wincing as a live round was fired just above my head.
It was a lot more dangerous than we'd anticipated and that same day two foreign journalists were killed.
DEATH IN AFGHANISTAN
Until this year, the New Zealand Defence Force had a remarkable safety record in Afghanistan. Despite the presence of hundreds of troops over a period longer than the World War II, New Zealand had not lost a soldier in that conflict.
That impeccable record ended with the death of 28-year-old Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell, killed when his three-vehicle patrol was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire.
Two years ago I travelled to Afghanistan and spent 10 days with the New Zealand Defence force in Bamiyan province. I interviewed another lieutenant who'd been injured in an attack on that very same road. I remember thinking that the terrain made the area almost indefensible. And this month New Zealand-born Private Jack Howard of the parachute regiment in the British Army was killed by friendly fire.
LEAKS ON THE INTERNET
WikiLeaks is undoubtedly one of the biggest stories of the year. But not just for its stated purpose of publishing classified and embarrassing documents. It's also a huge story because of its 39-year-old founder, Australian Julian Assange.
The former teenage computer hacker was bailed this month after being arrested on sex charges brought by two women in Sweden. His legal adviser has been quoted as saying the charges against Assange were 'clandestinely pre-arranged' and claiming that Swedish authorities are colluding with their American counterparts to extradite him to the US, where he could faces charges of espionage.
The Swedish extradition hearing is set for January 11.
COMMONWEALTH GAMES
First there was the doubt over whether the Games' venues and athletes village would be ready in time. Just over a week from the Games opening, a pedestrian bridge at the main stadium collapsed injuring more than 20 people. I'd been filming a 60 Minutes story at the time in Niger, West Africa, and got the call to get to Delhi.
Safety and security concerns were a major issue and my cameraman and I had our own scare when on our first day in Delhi we were rear-ended by a truck. It completely wrote off our car and we were lucky to walk away unscathed.
As we all know, the games went ahead and were reasonably successful. It was shame that, because of the threat of terrorist attacks, there was such a heavy security presence.
I think that was why so many locals stayed away from the events and venues.
I only hope when New Zealand hosts next year's Rugby World Cup we don't have similar security concerns.
Now there's a great headline for 2011's Top 10 news stories… 'All Blacks win World Cup'.