After Christchurch 04.09.10 Darfield Quake, M7.1 & State of Emergency, ending on September 15, although I'd stopped snapping quake damages for a while, aftershocks continued, so I posted Facebook comments:
On 04.09.10 shortly after 4.35am, Christchurch Quake stopped the clock on the old station clock tower, Moorhouse Ave. Stopped the clock on the Jubilee clock tower, Victoria St. 19 September 8.31am.
A Building Recovery Office has been set up on the Ground Floor of the new Christchurch City Council bldg, 53 Hereford St. The purpose is to provide advice and streamlined consents approvals for bldgs damaged in the earthquake. There will be a range of bldg and planning specialists available at the office. (Buck councillor flyer). 19 September 11.50am.
@Sheila. Unsure of insurance details, but damages can be claimed from the Earthquake Commission (EQC) a NZ govt body with megabucks invested. One also claims from one's own insurance company for damages not covered by the EQC. Council consenting approval & bldg plans take months under ordinary bldg circumstances, but the new office should cut through red tape, speed up things, so people can repair / rebuild asap. Govt pushed through new laws post quake to cut through red tape, as thousands of houses / businesses need rebuilding or repairs.
[Wishful thinking, as 2 years post 22.02.11 Killer Quake Council was still slow in processing new bldg consents.
This EQC prediction proved false: "The target is to have settled all claims under $10 000 by Christmas and to have inspected all properties with likely claims over $10 000 by March next year. EQC is settling its part of claims over $100 000 as they are identified. The repair work for all claims between $10 000 and $100 000, the ones to be managed by our Project Management Office, may take up to two years. We expect reinstating damaged land to take up to 18 months." EQC advert The Star, 5 November 2010, two months post Sept 4 Darfield Quake.
"Reinstating damaged land" consisted of mechanically bashing land to shrink pore space between soil particles, then infilling the hole. There was no guarantee that soil bashing would stop future liquefaction damage, just the fact that before the quake development land had been bashed at Pegasus town development, north of Christchurch, unaffected by liquefaction.
Dec 2023. The Press would report a class action by landowners who were short-changed by EQC, which had only paid out land owners for the value of their liquefactioned land, not for repairing their liquefactioned land!]
Besides spring flowers blooming, Chch has become colourful since the quake: damaged bldgs adorned in green, blue, red, orange, yellow, black, grey plastic tarps covering roofs or bandaging chimneys. Wobbly gables are wood braced, wobbly walls & pavement awnings are firmed with wood or steel bracing until proper repairs can be done. Priority safety. CBD is full of steel mesh fencing, scaffolding around dodgy bldgs while workmen do repairs.
New laws were quickly passed to increase reinforcement of Heritage bldgs, as Chch has many Victorian, greystone basalt bldgs, so some Heritage bldg owners / mortgagees are whining that it's cheaper to demolish their Heritage bldgs than to pay for extra quake reinforcements. Heritage bldgs are full of quake cracks. 19 September 7.42pm.
Christchurch quake damaged warehouses & Kaikoura landslide over road, rail links caused unusual brand names & stock shortages on supermarket shelves: bread, rice, flour, toilet paper, paper towels, sultanas, raisins, Coca Cola, green bananas. Some dearest, cheapest stocks only available. Quake damage specials on goods liked tinned Watties baked beans. Bought 10kg bag of Invercargill Nadine spuds, $3 cheaper. 21 Sept 9.48am.
Leah's colleague lost her Burwood, Chch home in the M7.1 Darfield Quake. House doors silted closed by liquefaction stopped her family fleeing in the night. Trapped in the quaking house, the family cowered by a wall in the dark thinking the world was ending; while a bottomless void opened in the middle of their house. Two weeks later in daylight they still can't see the bottom. 21 September 7.02pm.
@Cherryn Paige, Cassidy. After most things stopped in the week or so post quake, during the State of Emergency, now that people are back at work, their lives are changed forever, the stories... 21 September 7.15pm.
@Sheila. Everything has changed, never the same. Christchurch, structurally scarred. People have quake fever. Leah's workmates can't concentrate, out of sorts. Luke's workmate from Chile was sacked for continually arguing with the builder's apprentice.
Leah is the only stable person part time teaching a girl whose Kaiapoi family lost their home, which sunk over 20cm into liquefaction mire. The girl's St Paul's School, Dallington, must be rebuilt due to quakemire damage, so the girl must move to another temporary school, Cathedral College. Must re-school again next year.
A SA Dallington family we know had no sewage nor water connections for 5 days post quake, due to liquefaction damage. Another Burwood family Leah knows also lost their home due to liquefaction: used buckets as toilets for days before Civil Defence provided portaloos [only after that mess was shown on national TV]. 22 September 8.30am.
@Sheila, Janet. I see many "Business Relocated" hand written signs on quake damaged business premises & newspaper notices. eg:
"Due to the earthquake all Mastertrade staff have relocated to Mico Bathrooms in Antigua Street, just round the corner.
Our staff are fully up and running and keen to help out anyone with plumbing or bathroom enquiries." (The Press). 22 September 8.46am.
PM Key: "We are negotiating with insurers, with the EQC to make sure we can put together a package that allows them [claimants] to have their assets preserved, restored and the least financial impact on those residents." The Press. 22 September 8.55am.
[Did PM Key know about previous National & Labour govts dipping into EQC funds? After the quake, Chch housing market slowed down almost to a halt. Our Indian neighbours from Delhi couldn't sell their house, (for sale pre-quake) so took it off the market. Who wanted to buy a house when aftershocks could cause damage?]
Three Boys Brewery, Woolston, named two unique beers, M7.1 & Aftershock, after Christchurch M7.1 quake shook a brewing beer & a M5.1 aftershock caused a power cut to another brewing beer. Will be sold at bars like The Twisted Hop, Poplar St (The Press). 23 September 9.41am.
Day 19: We were shaken awake by a M4.5 aftershock, epicentre 10km west of Chch. Spooked cat jumped off our bed. GeoNet gives quake info: daily NZ seismic activity including Chch. Many rural quakes on North Island. 23 Sept 9.53am.
@Pippa. Hardly notice aftershocks anymore, pause then carry on. Big aftershocks are still unnerving, especially ones that wake us up, like last night's M4.5 at 3.40am, epicentre 20km west of Chch. GeoNet records daily quakes around us: Darfield, Springfield, Lyttelton, towns near Christchurch. Know a kid who can't sleep at night, fears she's going to die in a quake, changed forever. 24 September 10.04am.
@Pippa. Chch City Council & Canterbury Health Board elections continue. Some promises by candidates in their pre-quake blurbs are funny: "Safety of Chch streets. We are now officially NZ's safest metropolitan centre." (mayor Parker). "I will work to keep our water fresh, clean & available to all." (Anderton). "Will promote an untouched clean water supply." (Hawarden). 24 September 11.24am.
Quake damages: "Damage totalling $4 billion including $2 billion to residential property, $1 billion for commercial and industrial property, $1 billion for council and government infrastructure... Over 2 600 homes have been reported as uninhabitable and a further 2 900 as not weatherproof." (The Star). 25 September 9.36am.
@Sean. Many people affected, much damage. Three weeks post quake, many clean ups, repairs going on. Chch has empty sites where once old bldgs stood. CBD looks different already. Will be interesting to see what councillors, planners, architects, tradesmen do to improve Chch.
Some repairs briefly look worse than quake damage e.g. scaffolding, cranes, bldg inspectors everywhere. New bare wooden supports below wonky pavement awnings, awaiting restoration. Steeple roof taken off damaged Chinese Methodist Church, Papanui Rd. Bright new corrugated iron patches on roofs where chimneys once stood. Victoria St / Bealey Ave Saggio di vino restaurant, roof damaged, outer brick wall stripped off during rebuilding. Ferry Rd. Another bldg roof damaged, slowly being hand demolished. [Demolition speeded up the next week]. Great mounds of fenced off rubble, twisted metal on demolition sites, awaiting haulage.
Another aftershock, guesstimate M4, while on Facebook. Shook my seat! 25 Sept 10.26am
Daily traffic jams in the CBD, due to fencing & plastic tapes across repair areas, changes daily. 25 September 11.18am.
@Sean, George. Complaints from quake damaged areas that bus tours were going past damaged houses. Been several big aftershocks today, Sat / early Sun morn, last one a few minutes ago after 2am, big, rumbly, grumbly quake, made my spine judder in my seat. 26 September 3.04pm.
@Sean. Hopefully local leaders will get it right. Victorians got it wrong, bricks, masonry in a quake zone. Nitwits are now calling masonry monstrosities "Heritage buildings" worthy of preserving. Till someone gets killed! 26 September 3.33pm.
129 new snaps. Darfield Earthquake, M7.1, 04.09.2010. 26 September 3.53pm.
@Janet. I went out daily for 13 days documenting changes. In reality, you wont see what's in the snaps again, as clean ups, demolitions happened fast. Some snaps already show clean ups, but some junk was left. 26 September 5.56pm.
@Anton, David. Already snapped some then-&-now images as some demolitions happened fast. As I took many angle shots, I'll put more pics on my Woza Wanderer blog when I can, as Blogger is as slow as Facebook, max 5 snaps a time, will take a while. 27 September 8.29am.
@Lynelle. Working on blogging quake snaps, not finished yet. Aftershocks haven't stopped for 3 weeks now.
Luke broke his collarbone skateboarding over a pavement quake hole in the dark. A celebrity with his mates. 27 September 3.36pm.
@Diane, Jenny. Leah & Mark well.
Luke: On pain killers. Fall happened at night, Luke often skates home at night. "Slept" overnight at home, as we weren't sure it was a break, only took him to a doc next day (Sat). Clean break, no protruding bone. Treatment: just leave it to regrow, as it's too close to veins, will see doc again in 2 weeks. Fortunately Luke has finished his 200 hr prac of his builder course, as he's off bldg site work for a while. 27 September 11.17pm.
More Snaps: Darfield Earthquake, M7.1, 04.09.2010. 27 Sept 11.51pm.
@Sheila, John. Over 13 days I only snapped small areas in suburbs & CBD, then stopped, exhausted. Also demolishers, repairmen, some suspicious, unfriendly cops & troops hovered, discouraging rubberneckers, all branded potential "looters" during the State of Emergency. I didn't always catch the immediate aftermath of the quake, impossible as only professional photographers were allowed in State of Emergency cordons manned by cops & soldiers for 10 days post quake. The rest of us could've been arrested for curfew breaking, being within cordons illegally. Several court cases already punish looters / burglars / thieves / drunks in "wrong" places.
I documented places I've known over the last 15 years. Haven't seen several Christchurch suburbs, but see more quake damage daily, as well as rapid repairs, demolitions. Nearby towns like Brooklands, Spencerville, Kaiapoi, Lyttelton, Rolleston, Prebbleton, Kirwee, Darfield, Coalgate, Springfield, Rangiora, Oxford all have their quake stories. 28 September 09.00am.
Heath St: Outside our home, spring flowering, ornamental apple blossom scent will always remind me of quakes. 28 September 10.42am.
Ex councillor: "Now after the quake... the Council has the power to stop demolition & urges the fast tracking of Heritage reviews as well as the implementation of other measures." (Nor'west news). Chch has too many ugly, unsafe, expensive to maintain "Heritage" bldgs! The councillor should buy those bldgs, use them personally, not expect ratepayers to buy junk. 29 September 3.14pm.
@Val from Leah. We are still getting aftershocks continuing to do damage. We are now aware of some minor surface cracks in our house that weren't there initially. I'm very glad to be in a wooden house.
Despite all the really serious damage around us, we have been very lucky. There are people who are without homes who have to rebuild their lives. It's amazing seeing piles of rubble where unsafe bldgs have already been demolished.
Have just had an aftershock right now, watching the pen on our desk roll from side to side, my pot plant leaves move as though a wind is in the room. The chair I'm sitting on shudders beneath me. We get used to them after the initial second or two of adjusting, but they generally don't last long!
In our area [Burnside] we have water which no longer needs boiling, sewage OK, power back to normal. Some people took longer to get theirs' back to normal, relied on portaloos & help from others. I have 2 friends who have lost their homes.
Pressure on roads: more cars have to go on available roads, not all are safe, some are closed or have sections closed. It took me more than double my usual time to get back from work on the first day that schools reopened. (Schools, many businesses closed for a week, while initial safety checks & damage assessments were done). I've become creative in using side roads, avoiding many roads or problem roads. A lot of repairs are already underway or completed. It was creepy driving over roads cracked like a torn piece of paper.
Buildings have already been demolished, others have been braced with wood or steel as temporary repairs to keep them safe. Many churches built from stone or brick are badly damaged, sad to see. Chinese Methodist Church not far from our home: the damaged, unsafe steeple roof was lifted by crane & set onto the ground beside the church, till the danger is over & it can be safely repaired.
It will take a long time till our limping, scarred city mends. As all of us are alive is precious. 30 September 3.04pm.
@Val from Leah. Our shake aftershocks are STILL around. Not happening as frequently, but still giving us some whoppers just to remind us it is still around. Last weekend we had a M4.5 & a M4.9 just to remind us what we are missing! It is weird to watch things like pens roll from side to side or water in a jug do a swaying dance. The whole house rocks, windows rattle, we feel vibrations of shock waves through our bodies. Luckily our house is in an area relatively unaffected so it is not so stressful. For those whose houses are already damaged, each aftershock brings fresh worries.
Some of the damage we have seen is incredible: bldgs have moved or tilted, or structures have either sunk or risen.
Driving around the city will continue to give hassles for some time, damaged roads & bldgs causing traffic problems. 30 September 6.11pm.
Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.
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