The after shock

I travelled to Christchurch 5 years ago as part of my trip with Rob around the world so I was keen to see the effects of the two earthquakes in Sept 2010 and Feb 2011. From what I remembered it was a bustling city with many similarities to Oxford/Cambridge (the city is named after Christ collage) and had a fabulous botanical garden and river where you could go punting. 

Christchurch Botanical Gardens (14th November 2013)

However what we discovered quite shocked us.

Christchurch sits on a fault line mid way down the eastern seaboard of NZ south island. The two earth quakes were relatively shallow at 10 and 5km respectively and were very close to the CBD of the city. The first was 7 or so on the Richter scale hit at about 430am and caused damage but no deaths, the second however, even though it was less powerful at 6 on the Richter scale, resulted in 185 deaths and unimaginable damage to buildings and infrastructure resulting in 75% of CBD buildings being pulled down as they were uninhabitable and too dangerous.

Christchurch Cathedral (14th November 2013)

It has been interesting talking to Chris, Helen and their family(our amazingly generous and wonderful hosts for the first week of our trip) about their experiences of the quake and it seems there are a lot of questions still unanswered about the sign off of buildings from the first quake as this may have contributed to deaths of many people who went back in to buildings declared safe after the first quake but subsequently collapsed in the second.

The centre is now a ghost town with no shops, hotels, restaurants or businesses. Wandering through the city there was a eerie emptiness with spaces where buildings had fallen and the large majority of those few left standing condemned; still marked with the search and rescue spray paint on each door that indicated when the search had been completed - a strong reminder of the unimaginable impact on the city.

One of the many buildings still closed 2 years on from the earthquakes (14th November 2013)

We also came across the very moving 185 chairs installation - a poignant memorial to those that lost their lives.

185 Chairs (14th November 2013)

 

But there seems to be hope.

The re:start mall - a shopping centre made from shipping containers (we found it fascinating how much these were used across the city to protect roads from unstable buildings and cliff faces) brought a brightly coloured and welcome vibrancy back to the centre.

Re:start Mall (14th November 2013)

The very moving quake exhibition showed how the community were coming together to clean up the streets from liquefaction and told their own personal experiences and memories and highlighted the big grand plan of how they intended to rebuild the city.

And the cardboard cathedral (an architectural unique concept constructed with cardboard tubes) providing a temporary yet beautiful place of worship as the majority of stone churches and the main cathedral in the city had been condemned.

The cardboard tubes that give the Cathedral its name (14th November 2013)

Let's hope they now have the time to truly recover and bring the centre back to the bustling city I remember, with a community and people like Chris, Helen and their family I'm sure it will!