EARTHQUAKES

EARTHQUAKES

Christchurch was devastated by 4 serious earthquakes over a years time in 2010 and 2011. Although the "no entry" Red Zone has dramatically decreased in size since the last big quake there is still an area of town that has restricted entry due to the serious condition of many buildings and streets. Roads and building reconstruction abounds.

One main reason why these quakes were so devastating is because the last quake was different. The one before was a shaking, or horizontal earthquake; the kind that makes buildings sway left and right. The last one was a vertical quake that would lift the buildings and then drop them; lift and drop, lift and drop several times. The immovable concrete could not withstand such stress and much of it cracked or crumpled. The wood structures survived mainly unscathed. One lady who gave us a guided our of the Botanical Gardens said the ground "rolled along". The oldest Catholic Cathedral sustained irreparable damage and will never be reconstructed. They are deciding on how to leave it, whether with part of it as a facade for a memorial, or whether to tear it down completely. There is much controversy in the decision.

I spoke to a construction worker who agreed that there was a lot of work to do and construction trades would be very busy for years to come. Our tour guide on an open air bus tour of the city told us that there was a great shortage of skilled tradesmen in New Zealand. The country has been getting the "help wanted" word out to Asian countries and also, to Ireland, where unemployment is very high.

One Japanese tourist was overheard ragging on the slowness of the NZ government, Christchurch's City Council in particular, to rebuild, citing Japan's quick recovery time from their tsunami. The problem here seemed to be the Council's indecision of agreeing on a reconstruction plan. We have heard talk of 3, 4 or 7 story height limits. At any rate, strict new earthquake guidelines and safety measures will be required. The procrastination is hurting many businesses. One devastated building I saw had a plywood sign out front, on which the owner had scrawled these words in black spray paint: "We will be back, no thanks to the scum". Our driver said it refers to the City Council, which, apparently, is not well liked right now!

Because of the high tourism in Christchurch, the City Council allowed the use of shipping containers to create a shopping area downtown as a means of boosting the economy quickly. Containers were brought in and set up in mainly one area of town, although not limited to that. They were cut open, ends and sides where windows and doors were added, many were set up side by side and welded together to seal out the elements and opened up to resemble large stores. Once inside, you couldn't tell you was inside a container! Containers were stacked on top of stores to provide storage of goods for restocking the shelves at night. Even the public toilets. Banks, and Coffee Shops were shipping containers! It was very cool!

Christchurch has had their share of quakes. Since the last of the big ones in 2011, there have been more than 13,000 quakes and aftershocks around the city. Fortunately, they were small enough in magnitude to not cause further damage. Why, in the past week there have been 13 quakes recorded; Four since we've been here! It's no wonder they refer to NZ as the "shaky isles"!