Dunedin and other southern South Island councils will again make available any assistance Christchurch requires after the tragic earthquake in the city.
Civil defence personnel in Dunedin, after helping with initial responses yesterday, were planning for what might be required in the days to come to deal with the emergency.
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull, who was yesterday at Auckland airport after a local government metro mayors conference, said he had already sent a message to Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker that ''our brothers and sisters in Christchurch are in our thoughts''.
Dunedin would offer any assistance the city required.
Dunedin City Council civil defence and rural fires manager Neil Brown said the organisation was looking at what might be required in Christchurch once requests came, and what might be needed in Dunedin.
With Dunedin Hospital preparing for the possibility of taking earthquake victims, and St John having deployed three Dunedin helicopters with clinical staff and equipment, the implications for Dunedin needed to be considered.
''In Dunedin, we're going to have to be a bit clever about managing our emergency responses.''
City council civil defence welfare manager Derek King said there had been no official request for housing yet, but he would do a stocktake of what housing the council and Housing New Zealand had on offer.
That would involve checking if there were beds and bedding available, as well as what houses were available, if people needed to stay in Dunedin.
The Otago Regional Council has offered whatever assistance was needed through the Otago Civil Defence Emergency Management Group to the civil defence monitoring group in Christchurch.
Council communications spokesman Peter Taylor said staff were on standby until they heard what help was needed from the Wellington co-ordination centre.
Emergency Management Southland has trained personnel on standby to help in Christchurch.
Adviser Craig Sinclair said building inspectors, welfare staff, headquarters staff and the Red Cross rescue team were all available to be deployed immediately.
The Southland Emergency Operations Centre had been activated, staff poised to respond as soon as the National Crisis Management Centre advised what help was required.
''We will be on standby overnight to assist wherever we can,'' Mr Sinclair said.
The council said through its Twitter social media site last night it had sent a team of four building-control officers to Christchurch as support for the Christchurch City Council teams.
