A story of hope, at least when it comes to the rebuilding challenge ahead, particularly of Christchurch's badly damaged Cathedral. The Australian city of Newcastle suffered a major earthquake in 1989, and over the next few years put huge effort into rebuilding, virtually brick by brick, its ruined Cathedral. John McNaughton, who was the Lord mayor of Newcastle who oversaw the rebuild, joins us.
A special trauma team has been brought into Christchurch to try to stop a panic exodus of refugees living in the city. Among the 70-thousand people who have fled Christchurch in the last week are refugees who are afraid that another big earthquake will hit. The team is also working with new immigrants, many of whom are victims of war and torture. Dr Arif Saeid is with the organisation Refugees As Survivors.
A big bake off is being planned in Auckland this weekend to raise funds for the people affected by the Christchurch earthquake. The sale is taking place at Queen Elizabeth Square, opposite Britomart on Monday from 10.30 to 12.30. All the funds raised will go to the Red Cross. The organiser Glenn Browne has had such a strong response he's had to close the doors of his business and concentrate on the event.
Many Christchurch trades people are refusing to carry out quake repairs unless the homeowner agrees to pay the bill, saying it takes too long to get the money out of the Earthquake Commission. Some contractors say they still haven't been paid for jobs done after the quake in September and the amount of debt some businesses are carrying are putting them in jeopardy.
Sixteen-year-old Sam Mackwell and his mates from St Thomas of Canterbury College have created a device that uses boiling water to charge cellphones, power a light and run a radio. They came up with the idea for the small generator after the first earthquake in Canterbury in September when electricity supplies were cut to much of the city. They call the device"The Lion"and hope to sell it in retail stores soon.
Topics - The Government has just announced it is to allocate $70 million from its Canterbury Earthquake Appeal fund of about 100 million. National's party list is out and Tau Henare is one of the biggest losers. As Pacific leaders gather in Auckland for the Pacific Forum meeting this week, several of the nations' leader are calling for Fiji to be restored as a member of the Forum..
Gary Luff's home was destroyed in February earthquake in Christchurch and he faced scenes of devastation in his work with the fire service. He and his partner struggled to find somewhere to stay in the aftermath and ended up living on a borrowed boat. They've enjoyed the surprise lifestyle change so much they're thinking of making it permanent - but it hasn't all been plain sailing.
If you've used your eftpos card, caught a bus or taxi, taken a photo on your smartphone or mapped a run or walk then you've probably used GPS - the global positioning system developed by the US military. Christchurch city council is using location technology to keep tabs on the city's rubbish bins. With nearly half a million wheelie bins in circulation, it's hoping to track down 16.000 wheelie bins that are missing following the February 2011 earthquake.
A prominent Christchurch property investor says the Government's anchor projects meant to help rebuild the city faster, has instead slowed it down. After the 2011 earthquake, the Government launched a recovery plan for the CBD, which had 16 anchor projects designed to spur on the rebuild. However, many have been plagued by delays and are still unfinished. Property investor Antony Gough told RNZ reporter Anan Zaki that unlike the Government, it was the private sector which ploughed ahead with the rebuild.
Matthew McEachen should have had most of his life ahead of him when he died on February 22, 2011. The 25-year-old was a talented artist and designer, putting his skills to good use at the Southern Ink tattoo shop on Colombo St. But when the earthquake struck, Bruce, Jeanette and Sarah McEachen lost their much-loved son and older brother. Ten years on, Matti's legacy lives on. Checkpoint reporter Nick Truebridge and cameraman Nate McKinnon with his story.
Christchurch has its own social superhero and he's gone cap in hand to the council for funding. The self-styled lycra-clad superhero, known only at 'Flat Man', has been dropping care packages to people since the 2011 Canterbury earthquake. He also wants to be able to help schoolkids and anxious and stressed residents through their troubles. And to do this, he's now asking the Christchurch City Council for funding. He joins us now, and says "a cape is a must".
The much loved 'Dux de Lux' pub in Christchurch could be set to open its doors again in the next few years if enough money can be raised to restore it. The building was badly damaged by the earthquake in 2011 and a group looking to rebuild the pub say it could take around 12 million dollars to see it welcoming Cantabrians back. James Stewart of Gemelli Consulting had a yarn with Nathan Rarere about a couple of schemes to raise the money.
Thousands of Christchurch refugees have poured into Timaru since the earthquake on February 22, boosting its population by nearly 20 per cent. Social services are giving out hundreds of food parcels, blankets, toiletries and clothes every day as well as finding accommodation for people who have turned up in town with nothing. Major Dean Herring of the Salvation Army in Timaru has been helping evacuees find places to live as well as dealing with the huge piles of donated goods.
The families of the victims of the CTV building collapse in Christchurch have told an engineering disciplinary hearing they've been waiting 12 years for accountability. The building collapsed in the February 2011 earthquake killing 115 people. It was designed by Dr Alan Reay's firm - Reay was criticised by the Earthquake Royal Commission for handing sole responsibility of it to an inexperienced employee. Reay has tried to stop the disciplinary process going ahead but it got underway in Christchurch today. Reporter Anna Sargent spoke to Charlotte Cook.
A woman badly injured in the Christchurch earthquake is astonished a new building in the city has been found to have serious seismic flaws. The empty new office building at 230 High Street has multiple problems in its earthquake design that the city council was warned about almost two years ago. Construction of the seven-storey building continued even after those warnings in December 2017. Susie Ferguson speaks to University of Canterbury lecturer Ann Brower, who was crushed after falling masonry fell on her bus during the February twenty-second 2011 earthquake.
A Christchurch insurance advocate says the new Canterbury Earthquake Insurance Tribunal may finally be the solution to get unresolved claims from the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes settled. The government has launched an earthquake insurance tribunal to try to finally resolve outstanding insurance claims from the Canterbury earthquakes. Dean Lester, who acts as a insurance claim preparer in Christchurch, told our reporter Rachel Graham the tribunal will have the power to get on and make a decision on the key sticking points, without people facing the huge cost of a high court trial.
A review of the week's news including: Continuing industrial trouble at Ports Of Auckland, the National Road Policing manager Paula Rose on holiday road toll figures, Southland faces drought conditions, researchers come up with a solution that could lower the cost of rebuilding the earthquake devastated Christchurch CBD, a 24 year old woman with autism wins a 2011 attitude award for raising awareness of the condition, New Zealand Tasman Sea rowers hope to finally make some progress and how they celebrate New year at the bottom of the World.
RNZ is launching a new podcast today marking the tenth anniversary of Christchurch earthquake. It's called Fragments: Firsthand accounts of the February 2011 earthquakes. The podcast features interviews done with quake survivors recorded in the months following the devastating earthquake recorded by locals Julie Hutton and Sandra Close. RNZ checked in with some of the people Hutton and Close spoke to ten years on from the disaster. Katy Gosset produced and presented the podcast. An earlier version of this article failed to reference the work from Julie Hutton and Sandra Close.
A Christchurch man with terminal cancer is using his final days to battle his insurance company, a decade on from the deadly earthquakes. Brian Shaw owns an apartment that's in a block of 11. They were all damaged in 2011. Shaw is a building consent officer. He says getting technical reports and chasing a settlement with insurer Vero has already cost the unit owners about $400,000, and they still have not even made it to court. On Friday morning he will be protesting outside Vero's Christchurch office, along with other unhappy customers.
Motoko Kakubayashi joins us from Toyko where they are also about to mark a significant anniversary. A few weeks after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit the east coast of Japan, triggering a tsunami that destroyed large parts of the coast, including damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant. More than 15,000 lives were lost, more than 2000 still remain missing. In one afternoon, half a million people became homeless, and the search for family and friends at evacuation shelters began.
A scathing inquiry into the Earthquake Commission's handling of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes could mean huge change for how it handles claims. The Government says it's committed to implementing all of the recommendations from the inquiry, including improving its communication, planning and preparedness and dispute resolution. John Goddard, an insurance and employment law barrister who dealt with more than 4000 claims at the time, says repairs were handled poorly and the new recommendations won't cover all the bases. John Goddard and Melanie Bourke of EQC Fix speak to Corin Dann.
In the hours after the February 2011 Canterbury earthquake, Chessie Henry's father Chris Henry, a Kaikoura-based doctor, crawled into makeshift tunnels in the collapsed CTV building to rescue the living and look for the dead. Six years later, Chessie interviewed Chris in an attempt to understand the trauma that lead her father to burnout. In her book just published, We Can Make A Life: A memoir of family, earthquakes and courage, Chessie Henry considers the psychological cost of heroism and unravels stories and memories from her family history.
Its budget may have blown out by almost a third more than the original figure, but this weekend the doors to the Christchurch Town Hall will re-open for the first time since the 2011 earthquakes. It was touch and go whether the 47 year-old building would even be repaired after the 6.2 quake eight years ago today. 167-million-dollars later and the city is finally getting its town hall back. Conan Young was allowed inside for a sneak peak ahead of Saturday's official opening.
Almost half the ACC applications made for mental injuries caused by the Christchurch mosque attacks have been turned down. By the end of April, 85 people had made claims for mental injuries and thirty-five of them had been declined. Decisions are pending on another 25 claims. A woman who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, and didn't qualify for ACC, says that's tragic. Kirsty Cullen says leaving people who have psychological problems without support from ACC is history repeating. Veronica Schmidt reports.
The company running the restoration of Christchurch's Anglican Cathedral is confident it will be able to raise the extra $51 million still needed to finish the job, and says potential large donors are already being approached here and overseas. The building has sat derelict since the 2011 earthquake and now the cost to fix it has soared from an original estimate of $104 million to $154 million. Some Cantabrians are finding the price hard to justify. The director of the restoration project Keith Paterson speaks to Corin Dann.
After being trapped for hours on the 22nd floor of a hotel following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, Andy Cleverley decided life had to change. Chucking in his corporate life, he bought an old school bus, converted it into an off-grid motorhome and set off travelling the country with his young family. Documenting everything along the way he created Bus Life NZ - followed by over 46,000 people and viewed by millions. Now he's done it all again with a second bus and a second YouTube season.
The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern took a detour on the way to meeting with Joko Widodo to accept a petition against oil exploration. A law which prevents charges being laid over the collapse of Christchurch's CTV buildin gin the 2011 earthquake could be repealled soon. The president of the Crime Prevention Group Sunny Kaushal updates what if anything has improved for shop owners in the face of violent robberies. Eight million tonnes of plastic goes into the world's oceans each year. Is New Zealand phasing out supermarket bags worth the effort?
Little is known about The Wizard of New Zealand who took centre stage in Christchurch's Cathedral Square from the 70s until the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011, which saw the city in a state of disrepair. A man who challenged political, social and cultural ideology, The Wizard posed provocative questions in this public space, much to the delight, and sometimes dismay, of passersby. But the background to why The Wizard was there in the first place has been something of a mystery... until now. Sonia Yee finds out more in this episode of Eyewitness.
From the time it opened in the 1920s, the Winter Garden ballroom was the place to go for debutante balls and big-band concerts in Christchurch. Queen Elizabeth II even dined there during her visit in 1954. But this special part of Christchurch's history is over and the Armagh Street building has been placed on the urgent demolition list because of earthquake damage. Tiny Kirk is the chairman of the Trade Union Centre which has owned the building since 1984.
Despite a hasty retreat from its iconic building in Christchurch's Square following the February earthquake, 'The Press', is in celebration mode. It's 150 years since the paper began with a six page edition that sold for six pence. It's first pages warned of the crippling cost of a new tunnel and rail line connecting Lyttelton to Christchurch, and on the back, a for sale ad for 100,000 gorse plants! Deb Nation finds the paper celebrated their centenary 50 years earlier, with memories of pigeon post and paper boys.