UCSA President Kohan McNab addressing students at the University of Canterbury inside the UCSA's "Big Top" tent. The tent was erected in the UCSA car park to provide support for students in the aftermath of the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The students have spent the day clearing liquefaction from Christchurch properties as part of the Student Volunteer Army. To the right of McNab, a local musician who has been entertaining the students can be seen.
Members of the University of Canterbury's E-Learning team admire the view from their temporary office in the James Hight building. The photographer comments, "First looks at our new temporary (maybe) office space. Our group will stay here until April or May 2011, then will move to another floor in the Central Library. South window of our office. Our view looks out to the Port Hills and around to the south west, towards Halswell and Lincoln".
This is a joint Resilience Framework undertaken by the Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Department of the University of Auckland in association with West Power and Orion networks and partially funded by the New Zealand National Science Challenge and QuakeCoRE. The Energy- Communication research group nearly accomplished two different researches focusing on both asset resilience and system resilience. Asset resilience research which covers underground cables system in Christchurch region is entitled “2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence Impact on 11KV Underground Cables” and system resilience research which covers electricity distribution and communication system in West Coast region is entitled “NZ Electricity Distribution Network Resilience Assessment and Restoration Models following Major Natural Disturbance“. As the fourth milestone of the aforementioned research project, the latest outcome of both projects has been socialised with the stakeholders during the Cigre NZ 2019 Forum.
SeisFinder is an open-source web service developed by QuakeCoRE and the University of Canterbury, focused on enabling the extraction of output data from computationally intensive earthquake resilience calculations. Currently, SeisFinder allows users to select historical or future events and retrieve ground motion simulation outputs for requested geographical locations. This data can be used as input for other resilience calculations, such as dynamic response history analysis. SeisFinder was developed using Django, a high-level python web framework, and uses a postgreSQL database. Because our large-scale computationally-intensive numerical ground motion simulations produce big data, the actual data is stored in file systems, while the metadata is stored in the database.
Overview of SeisFinder SeisFinder is an open-source web service developed by QuakeCoRE and the University of Canterbury, focused on enabling the extraction of output data from computationally intensive earthquake resilience calculations. Currently, SeisFinder allows users to select historical or future events and retrieve ground motion simulation outputs for requested geographical locations. This data can be used as input for other resilience calculations, such as dynamic response history analysis. SeisFinder was developed using Django, a high-level python web framework, and uses a postgreSQL database. Because our large-scale computationally-intensive numerical ground motion simulations produce big data, the actual data is stored in file systems, while the metadata is stored in the database. The basic SeisFinder architecture is shown in Figure 1.
The 2010 Darfield earthquake is the largest earthquake on record to have occurred within 40 km of a major city and not cause any fatalities. In this paper the authors have reflected on their experiences in Christchurch following the earthquake with a view to what worked, what didn’t, and what lessons can be learned from this for the benefit of Australian earthquake preparedness. Owing to the fact that most of the observed building damage occurred in Unreinforced Masonry (URM) construction, this paper focuses in particular on the authors’ experience conducting rapid building damage assessment during the first 72 hours following the earthquake and more detailed examination of the performance of unreinforced masonry buildings with and without seismic retrofit interventions.
A PDF copy of pages 214-215 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Christchurch: A Board Game'. Photo (top): Peter Walker, Three Chairs Photography. With permission from Volunteer Army Foundation. Photo (bottom): Irene Boles.
A photograph of bricks forming a playing square of Christchurch: A Board Game. The bricks show a picture of ChristChurch Cathedral, and read, "ChristChurch Cathedral. Skip church, move to Ferry Rd".
A photograph of the wall of a street football arena built by Student Volunteer Army volunteers. The wall has a sign attached acknowledging the support of Resene, and is painted with the words, 'Red zone timber'.
A PDF copy of pages 208-209 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Street Football'. Photos: Eugenio Boidi
A PDF copy of pages 216-217 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Foamapalooza'. Photos: Peter Walker, Three Chairs Photography. With permission from Volunteer Army Foundation.
The Townsend Observatory is located in the Arts Centre of Christchurch, in what used to be Canterbury College (now University of Canterbury). The Townsend telescope itself is a historic 6-inch Cooke refractor built in 1864 for early Christchurch colonist, Mr James Townsend, and gifted by him to Christchurch College in 1891. At the same time, the Canterbury Astronomical Society handed over its funds to the College to help erect an observatory. The College used this, and money it had set aside for a medical school, to build a biological laboratory with an attached observatory tower, which was completed in 1896. The Biology Building and Observatory Tower was the last major design by architect Benjamin Mountfort. Mr Walter Kitson was appointed custodian of the telescope and regular public open nights commenced. and continued until 2010, with the telescope being operated by students of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury. The Observatory Tower was badly damaged in the 4 September 2010 earthquake and collapsed in the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The telescope was badly damaged by the collapse, but, amazingly, the optics were found entirely intact. The Department of Physics and Astronomy plans to restore the Townsend Telescope so that it can be returned to a replica Observatory Tower in its central city home, enabling the people of Christchurch, and visitors, to enjoy views of the night sky through this beautiful and historic telescope once again.
In this paper, we consider how religious leaders and Civil Defence authorities might collaborate to establish a two-way information conduit during the aftermath of a disaster. Using surveys and in-person interviews, clergy in different Christian denominations were asked about their roles in the earthquake, the needs of their congregations and the possibilities and obstacles to deeper collaboration with Civil Defence authorities.
A photograph of an installation on the corner of Manchester Street and Gloucester Street. The installation is titled "60 Lights Market", and is part of the LUXCITY event.
A photograph of volunteers standing in the centre of a labyrinth they have created on the former site of St Luke's church.
An entry from Jennifer Middendorf's blog for 21 October 2012 entitled, "Back by maternal demand".
A photograph showing Geoff Devoll and Anna Kouwenhoven in their 'red zoned' home, soon to be demolished following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing a demolition of a 'red zoned' home in Dallington, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing a demolition of a 'red zoned' home in Dallington, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing Road Cones in Dallington, Christchurch following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing a demolition of a 'red zoned' home in Dallington, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photography showing Bill and Heather Allott outside their 'red zoned' home, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing earthquake damage in a Dallington resident's home, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing earthquake damage in a Dallington resident's home, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing Jayne Cummins in her 'red zoned' home, soon to be demolished following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing earthquake damaged homes in Dallington, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing earthquake damage in a Dallington resident's home, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing a 'red zoned' home in Dallington, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph captioned, "I wonder what they're going to do with the land? We'd like a community garden. That's our aim, but I don't know what they're going to do. Seems like nobody does".
Caption reads: "We have to find a new home. We have to move on but we don't know what to look for."