A photograph of shells on a beach arranged to spell out the word 'smile' and a smiley face.
Early photographs are the best. They encompass everything from the utterly absurd to the momentous to the mundane. They provide us with a window into the past that is rare and wonderful (especially from an archaeological perspective), putting faces to … Continue reading →
Experts trying to restore Christchurch's busted sewerage system have faced up to concerned residents about what happened when raw sewage was allowed to flow directly into the sea in the months after the February earthquake.
As businesses in Christchurch start to think about what, if any, help they can expect from the government following Tuesday's devastating earthquake, some small businesses around the city are starting to reopen.
A photograph captioned, "Nobody’s trained for this, you go to your lawyer and they can’t give you an answer because they've never faced this before, so yeah, even they are scratching around trying to find out".
A damaged brick building on Tuam Street. Bricks have fallen from the wall exposing the interior, where a wooden structure can be seen to have collapsed. The photographer comments, "This is the damage caused by the numerous earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand. It closely resembles a face and the round blob in the square hole at the top of the nose is a pigeon".
A sign tied to the security fence surrounding Shands Emporium shows a heart made up of photographs of faces, and the words "Share your smile, share your love".
A house perched on the edge of the cliff above Sumner. Below, large bolts have been inserted into the cliff face above a cave entrance to strengthen it.
The family of a Christchurch earthquake victim wants the Royal Commission to investigate all Search and Rescue efforts during the disaster. The Government faces a higher-than-forecast Budget deficit.
Kaikoura and Wellington businesses operating adjacent to quake damaged buildings may face disruption for years to come as owners drag their feet on repair or demolition work. A Christchurch property owner has been unable to completely re-open for business since the February 2011 earthquake.
20161112_9961_7D2-70 The future face of Christchurch? Cultivate Christchurch is operating this urban farm in the city, about 5-10 minutes walk to Cathedral Square. Many of the buildings in this area were demolished after the earhquakes, and in the background is a new building on Kilmore Street.
The increase began after Christchurch's 2011 earthquakes, but the District Health Board is expecting to face even more challenges following effects of the Port Hills fires and last year's earthquake in Kaikoura.
The wooden church of St Luke the Evangelist, stood in Manchester Street, just north of the Avon, from 1858 until it was pulled down in 1908 to make way for a larger stone and brick structure, faced…
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Garden City Helicopters flown by Mark Read uses a 700 litre monsoon bucket to dump water on loose boulders and rocks on the cliff face above Redcliffs School to dislodge them".
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker, New standards for earthquake prone buildings in Christchurch, Some schools reopen, while others face permanent closure, PM says Defence Force's role to check CV, Plans to burn the Koran on hold not cancelled, Chances of magnitude aftershock hitting rapidly decreasing.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Garden City Helicopters flown by Mark Read uses a 700 litre monsoon bucket to dump water on loose boulders and rocks on the cliff face above Redcliffs School to dislodge them".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Garden City Helicopters flown by Mark Read uses a 700 litre monsoon bucket to dump water on loose boulders and rocks on the cliff face above Redcliffs School to dislodge them".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Garden City Helicopters flown by Mark Read uses a 700 litre monsoon bucket to dump water on loose boulders and rocks on the cliff face above Redcliffs School to dislodge them".
Continuing on from our last FAQ post, here are the answers to a few more of the questions we face regularly here in Christchurch. 1) Are you doing this for a school project? Yes, seriously. This gets asked more often … Continue reading →
Archaeologists are often faced with the question of what happens to artefacts after an excavation is complete? As is the case for a lot of excavations, artefacts can find themselves housed in museums. This centuries old institution found its beginning … Continue reading →
Cracks in the masonry of the Arts Centre's Worcester Street face. Some stones have fallen away around the roof's apex, and plywood has been used to weather proof the gap.
There are fears more than a hundred businesses, particulary in the retailing and restaurant sectors, will have to close their doors as a result of the physical and economic damage caused by the earthquake.
Cracks in the masonry of the Arts Centre's Worcester Street face. Some stones have fallen away around the roof's apex, and plywood has been used to weather proof the gap.
It's emerged that engineers involved in the most serious building collapse of the Christchurch earthquake are unlikely to face any external action, with the profession's two top bodies telling the Government their hands are tied.
“The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” – Fyodor Dostoevsky One of the challenges faced by any new colony is what to do with the non-conformists, renegades, and criminals. The ideal, of course, … Continue reading →
We have published previously on the importance of buildings, be they residential or commercial, as an artefact in understanding 19th century culture in New Zealand. While it’s easy to overlook the humble cottage as a source of archaeological data, houses … Continue reading →
Christchurch is home to many diverse ethnic groups whose voices have sometimes gone unheard in the aftermath of the earthquakes and the city's rebuild plans. Katy Gosset visits a gathering in Christchurch's battered eastern suburbs to hear their thoughts on post-quake life and the future of their adopted home.
The collapse of Redcliffs’ cliff in the 22 February 2011 and 13 June 2011 earthquakes were the first times ever a major failure incident occurred at Redcliffs in approximately 6000 years. This master’s thesis is a multidisciplinary engineering geological investigation sought to study these particular failure incidents, focusing on collecting the data necessary to explain the cause and effect of the cliff collapsing in the event of two major earthquakes. This study provides quantitative and qualitative data about the geotechnical attributes and engineering geological nature of the sea-cut cliff located at Redcliffs. Results from surveying the geology of Redcliffs show that the exposed lithology of the cliff face is a variably jointed rock body of welded and (relatively intact) unwelded ignimbrite, a predominantly massive unit of brecciated tuff, and a covering of wind-blown loess and soil deposit (commonly found throughout Canterbury) on top of the cliff. Moreover, detailing the external component of the slope profile shows that Redcliffs’ cliff is a 40 – 80 m cliff with two intersecting (NE and SE facing) slope aspects. The (remotely) measured geometry of the cliff face comprises of multiple outstanding gradients, averaging a slope angle of ~67 degrees (post-13 June 2011), where the steepest components are ~80 degrees, whereas the gentle sloping sections are ~44 degrees. The physical structure of Redcliffs’ cliff drastically changed after each collapse, whereby seismically induced alterations to the slope geometry resulted in material deposited on the talus at the base of the cliff. Prior to the first collapse, the variance of the gradient down the slope was minimal, with the SE Face being the most variable with up to three major gradients on one cross section. However, after each major collapse, the variability increased with more parts of the cliff face having more than one major gradient that is steeper or gentler than the remainder of the slope. The estimated volume of material lost as a result of the gradient changes was 28,267 m³ in February and 11,360 m³ in June 2011. In addition, surveys of the cliff top after the failure incidents revealed the development of fissures along the cliff edge. Monitoring 10 fissures over three months indicated that fissured by the cliff edge respond to intense seismicity (generally ≥ Mw 4) by widening. Redcliffs’ cliff collapsed on two separate occasions as a result of an accumulated amount of damage of the rock masses in the cliff (caused by weathering and erosion over time), and two Mw 6.2 trigger earthquakes which shook the Redcliffs and the surrounding area at a Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) estimated to be around 2 g. The results of the theoretical study suggests that PGA levels felt on-site during both instances of failure are the result of three major factors: source of the quake and the site affected; topographic amplification of the ground movement; the short distance between the source and the cliff for both fault ruptures; the focus of seismic energy in the direction of thrust faulting along a path that intercepts Redcliffs (and the Port Hills). Ultimately, failure on the NE and SE Faces of Redcliffs’ cliff was concluded to be global as every part of the exposed cliff face deposited a significant volume of material on the talus at the base of the cliff, with the exception of one section on the NE Face. The cliff collapses was a concurrent process that is a single (non-monotonic) event that operated as a complex series of (primarily) toppling rock falls, some sliding of blocks, and slumping of the soil mantle on top of the cliff. The first collapse had a mixture of equivalent continua slope movement of the heavily weathered / damaged surface of the cliff face, and discontinuous slope movement of the jointed inner slope (behind the heavily weathered surface); whereas the second collapse resulted in only discontinuous slope movement on account of the freshly exposed cliff face that had damage to the rock masses, in the form of old and (relatively) new discontinuous fractures, induced by earthquakes and aftershocks leading up to the point of failure.
A view across Armagh Street to the Cranmer Centre. Scaffolding has been constructed on the building's Armagh Street face, while on the Montreal Street side masonry from the walls has collapsed onto the road.
Since the earthquake in February the university has faced spiralling insurance costs and a decline in student enrolments. Now 24 staff have agreed to voluntary redundancy effective next year and the vice chancellor, Rod Carr, says despite that, it's largely business as usual.