The two violent aftershocks which rocked Canterbury on Monday have left residents living in hell, now swamped in liquefaction, and an awful sense of de ja vu.

Thousands of tonnes of silt, sand and sewage have once again burst to the surface of  streets that had only just been cleared of the mess from February’s quake.

And once again, in rural areas, Federated Farmers is asking for information from landowners about any property or stock issues resulting from the quake.

Feds earthquake spokesman John Hartnell says aside from a couple of problems in Banks Peninsula, most farmers seem to have survived through the latest shakes pretty well.

“I think the message is to be careful if you’re out there at the moment handling any of this material.

“Help will definitely be on its way, but the water will definitely have to subside before we are able to achieve much at all.

“What we saw on TV last night was people pushing around liquid sand, and that’s not going to achieve much.”

John Hartnell says he’s preparing to reissue a call for ‘farmy army’ volunteers in a similar capacity to the last two major events, in September last year and then again this February.

“I have to talk to a lot of people between now and lunchtime, and we’ve said there’s no point in us going out there and wandering around like silly buggers.

“We know that from past experience, so we’ve organised a meeting tomorrow morning at the city council.

“We’ll meet with Fulton Hogan and Citycare, along with Sam Johnson from the student army and we’ll all formulate how we’re going to attack this.”

Federated Farmers encourages anyone with problems to report them to their 24 hour hotline, 0800 FARMING (0800 327 646) or by emailing admin@fedfarm.org.nz.