(photograph © Kiwidutch)
In late November 2011, CERA, The (Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority) have deemed it safe for a very small part of the central city to be opened temporarily to the public.
Most of it has been completely cornoned off since Tuesday 22nd February 2011 as people were evacuated as quickly as possible from the area so specialist USAR (Urban Search And Rescue) could swing into action alongside the local police force, fire-fighters and volunteer fire-fighting forces from around the province in the desperate search for survivors from collapsed buildings.
As the aftershocks continued, the New Zealand Army, police flown in from around the country and support forces in the form of the Singapore Army (who happened to have been in the South Island for training exercises when the quake hit) and a large contingent of police flown in from Australia swiftly helped errect barrier gates and checkpoints around the city centre and patrolled them to stop opportunist looters from taking advantage of the damaged and unscure buildings and also from worried building owners, tourists and workers trying to retrieve their belongings.
Tourists, with access only the things they had on them that fateful lunchtime, were quickly offered free beds, meals and clothes with locals who still had water and electricty on, until their embassies could sort out temporary documents and travel arrangements out of the city.
Fortunately, instances of looting were very few and the expectionally strong sense of community that rose up after these quakes meant that many people kept an eye out on neighbouring properties and a few even caught looters red-handed and apprehended them until police arrived.
Since public sentiment was that looting was akin to kicking someone when they were down, and that not a shred of sympathy should be offered to opportunist thieves, the government quickly promised than there could be no plausable excuses offered for looting and that the punishment of certain incarceration would be swiftly dealt out, and indeed that’s exactly how it was for the few who choose to ingnore this message.
For building owners the cordon was a nightmere, their insurance details, stock records, computer hard drives and all important business paperwork were more often then not stored in an office on the work premises and then were was the stock, left behind in an extreme hurry and now no way back to secure or retrieve anything.
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Their plight was understandable but many of their buildings were no longer structurally safe to enter, or if they were, were often in the drop-zone of one close by that was in serious danger of imminant collapse in an aftershock that could happen any second.
Also stuctural engineers and USAR teams from around the globe were pouring into the city as the world looked on in horror and offered assistance where it could in this manner, and they didn’t need Joe Public running around under their feet whilst they did their work.
Of course there would have been a public outcry too, had the city authorities let business owners in too early and another tremor killed them whilst they were there.
You can measure earthquakes on the Richter Scale , but that’s not the whole story by any means when it comes to measuring the damage they can cause.
Factors that play a huge importance are the volocity (speed) that the shock of the quake is travelling at, and how shallow or how deep the epicentre of the quake is.
Engineers can build earthquake-proof structures to a certain degree, but a shallow epicentre at massive volocity almost directly under a major city centre is neigh impossible to build against and this is exactly the senario that unfolded on February 22nd in Christchurch New Zealand.
The bigger picture that has subsequently emerged is that it’s actually a miracle that so many buildings stood up, considering the size of the hit they all took. It’s once again testimant to the strict New Zealand building code.
On the CERA website there are documents and clips from various sources detailing what’s known about the quakes, the various hidden faults that caused them and ideas about where to from here. I’ve taken a few screen-shots of some of these presentations to show you the big differences between the Sept 4th 2010 quake and the one of Feb 22nd 2011.
In the following photo Christchurch City is on the right of both drawings… Epicentre (white circle) Sept 4th 2010 was west of the city ( and area of greatest damage in red), in Feb, almost a perfect bullseye…
(photograph © CERA. NZ website)
In September (dark blue on graph) the Ground Accelerations (both vertically and horizontally) seemed big enough… the 7.1 mag released a shock travelling though the ground at around 35 kms per second, but in comparison, the stored up energy originating from the volcanic rock of the Port Hills on Feb 22nd (in light blue on the graph) let rip a shock that travelled at around and amazing 150 kms per second even though it was a smaller 6.3 mag quake.
It knocked people off their feet and apparently some eyewitnesses said they thought they saw the CTV (Canterbury Television building that took many lives) lift clean off the ground before it pancaked. If that’s true, then how on earth do you quake-proof against a shock like that?
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Comparing the “G” forces of ground acceleration released in the NZ Sept and Feb quakes with other notable International “Big Ones”…
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
.. vertical (red) and horizontal (yellow) land damage: Sept 2010
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
… and in comparison ….vertical (red) and horizontal (yellow) land damage: Feb 2011
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Therefore it’s no surprise that more than 1500 buildings have sustained damage so severe that demolition is their only option. Parts of the city centre are still behind a cordon as they are being demolished. All but the few of these buildings managed their job well, to remain standing long enough to evacuate people safely even though they were mortally wounded.
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Like other Christchurch Kiwi’s living abroad, I’ve been following the local news sites on the internet, looking at websites and trying to get a picture of what’s it’s actually like now through stills photos and News reports.
I’m intelligent enough to know in my brain that my city is wrecked but it’s still in a strange way not really real in my heart until I see it for myself.
Until this day when I take this walk, no matter how hard I tried I still had the “old” memories imprinted on my brain and I was unable to rub them out until I had replaced them with a new memory of how it looks now.
Of course the “old” memories had emotional strings holding them in place… and they are bindings that are stronger that you ever think they are, no matter how analytical you think you might be.
Demolition crews have been busy since February and by late November enough of the seriously damaged buildings had been removed from the area of Colombo Street between the Cashel Street Mall and Cathedral Square for barriers to be set up and a public walkway to be installed.
This small corridor of a block and a half would allow people to take in the extent of the damage and the changes that have been taking place since.
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
Under usual circumstances Family Kiwidutch would have arrived in Christchurch a week too late to take the walk, but such was public demand that at the last minute they extended opening the area by a week and thus we arrived in time to go and do the walk on the second to last day it was open.
Luckily too that by this time the stated 50 minute “alloted time” by CERA was far less strictly observed so I had some two hours to do the block and a half walk on crutches with frequent stops for rest and photos.
That was my physio exercise for the day and we went and sat quietly for lunch at a cafe before I go back to the B&B for a nap.
The walk for Himself and the kids was one to marvel at the rubble and for Little Mr. a chance to count cranes, diggers and the like, but for me (and quite a few others I saw) it was an emotional time as I surveryed places where memories flooded back of times past and the reality set in that I would have to be cutting some of those emotional ties to old images and memories, and updating them with the new reality so that I could shed a tear and start the process of moving on.
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
(photograph © Kiwidutch)
