NZ priest hitches a flight to celebrate Mass after quake

The town of Kaikoura on New Zealand's South Island might have had its road and rail links cut after a major earthquake, but its priest has found a way to get into the town to celebrate Sunday Mass.

Passionist Father Pat McIndoe of Marlborough planned to "hitch a ride" on a flight into Kaikoura today, parish administrator Ginetta Petersen said yesterday.

Fr McIndoe, who is based in Blenheim at the top of the South Island, is scheduled to stay in Kaikoura for 10 days. Ms Petersen said he will assess what sort of help people there most need.

She added that the priest's hoped-for place on the flight came about as a result of a conversation with a parishioner, a teacher at a Blenheim preschool. Fr McIndoe expressed his desire to get to Kaikoura.

"She knew somebody, who knew somebody, who said there was a flight going ... (from) Marlborough Aero Club." So the plan is to "squeeze him in."

Fr John O'Connor, a parish priest in Hurunui district, lives in North Canterbury, close to the epicentre of the earthquake.

He said it "caused huge physical and emotional distress, surfacing again reminders of the trauma of the earlier quakes (starting in 2011)."

Fr O'Connor said that, immediately after the initial quake, "many people along the coastal areas of the parish were evacuated to higher ground ... Others, particularly in the north of the parish, escaped as their homes fell around them. Some were stranded on roads that opened up in front of and behind them."