Indonesian email focus. Email exchange about Christchurch quakes:
28.01.20.
Hi Mark,
My name is NM. I am a freelance writer and live in Palau City, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. I am very happy to find your blog and read your writings there, especially about the 2010 and 2011 Chch earthquakes. Unfortunately, I only discovered your blog when I returned from Chch last December 2019. For a week I was there to see Chch city immediately after the earthquake, including several locations such as the CBD, the red zone around the Avon River, Bexley, and as far as New Brighton.
I want to ask you a few things which I want to know about, and hopefully you will be pleased to give me information related to my questions.
1. Where were the residents moved / relocated in Chch after the government determined the red zone could no longer be inhabited?
2. What is the condition of the people who were moved from the red zone now? Do they have new, better life and better housing?
3. The city where I live in Palu experienced an earthquake which was followed by the tsunami and liquefaction on September 28, 2018. Some areas were decided as red zones and prohibited from being occupied. Residents in the red zone were moved to a new location with the construction of temporary shelters for them and waiting to be moved to a permanent location along with their dwellings. Does Chch also apply the same as this scheme?
4. There is an EQC in Chch, NZ. Before the earthquake, residents who have a house must pay insurance to the EQC? How much insurance costs do residents / homes have to pay EQC? Are payments monthly? or every year?
Thank you, Mark.
30.01.20.
Hi NM,
Glad you found my blog useful. Your questions:
1. Red zone residents moved elsewhere to houses or rentals of their own choice, in Christchurch or elsewhere. Some rented government built, small houses in 2 Christchurch parks. Government temporary rentals were expensive. And there were few govt rentals, some built many months after the quakes. Many people whose houses were damaged or destroyed moved elsewhere to live with family or friends [or lived in temp rentals] while dealing with payout settlements from EQC and / or insurance companies.
2. Condition: Those who got good payouts from EQC and / or insurance companies were OK. Many people had to fight slow EQC and slow insurance companies to get fair payouts. Some court cases are still ongoing today. [2023. Class actions still ongoing]. Slow payouts caused psychological damage to claimants. Please Google the EQC Commission of Inquiry for more details about slow EQC payouts & poor house repairs done by EQC.
3. NZ govt did not provide free housing for house damage claimants. NZ govt did supply temporary wage cover to businesses / workers who lost wages. My eldest son got 6 weeks wages paid by NZ govt for his job loss / wages lost in the hospitality industry during quakes. Thereafter he had to find another job. His house rental was smashed in the 22 Feb 2011 Killer Quake and he was out of work for 6 months. He overwintered in a garage with a chemical toilet during 2011, after February & June quakes. As parents we helped him with rent, cash, food, clothes, etc, till he found another hospitality job. Many families lived / survived like that during quake years 2010-13 incl - 16 000 quakes...
4. All NZ homeowners had to pay EQC premiums to NZ govt to cover some land, building, possession damages. [House contents no longer applies for EQC claimants]. Homeowners also had to pay premiums to their private insurance companies to cover more damages to housing & personal possessions, like clothes, furniture, carpets, cars, etc... I don't know the cost of EQC premiums. If you Google the EQC website you should be able to find details of EQC premiums & more information about EQC.
Hope you have recovered from the 2018 quake.
Kind regards,
Mark.
Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.
Coda.
Deja vu 2010-13 quakes, Geonet: Wed 20.09.23, 9.14am, M6.2 quake, depth 10km, 45km N of Geraldine, Rangitata River region. Approx 70km S, shook our Pleasant Point rental house for several seconds, leaving us jittery. Leah cancelled her school visits, I filled up our 2 cars with petrol & our bath with cold water, just in case! Luke said he felt the quake in Christchurch! A local school which Leah visited weekly had a real-time "drop, cover, hold" practice. Geonet later downgraded the quake to M6, depth 11km. Quake boffins opined that the quake fault was a side fault off the Alpine Fault which eased pressure on the Alpine Fault.
