A photograph of a marble plaque on the outside wall of the City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The plaque lists the former Mayors and Chairmen of Christchurch.
A large mobile generator on Travis Road. The photographer comments, "Big mobile generator giving power and relief to hard pressed families in North New Brighton after the Christchurch quake".
A photograph of a marble plaque on the outside wall of the City Council Civic Offices on Manchester Street. The plaque lists the former Mayors and Chairmen of Christchurch.
A message in a bottle, hidden under the floor of a Christchurch home for over fifty years, has been discovered during earthquake repairs and its writer's been tracked down.
The 4th of September 2010 Mw 7.1 Darfield (Canterbury) earthquake had generated significant ground shaking within the Christchurch Central Business District (CBD). Despite the apparently significant shaking, the observed structural damage for pre-1970s reinforced concrete (RC) buildings was indeed limited and lower than what was expected for such typology of buildings. This paper explores analytically and qualitatively the different aspects of the "apparent‟ good seismic performance of the pre-1970s RC buildings in the Christchurch CBD, following the earthquake reconnaissance survey by the authors. Damage and building parameters survey result, based on a previously established inventory of building stock of these non-ductile RC buildings, is briefly reported. From an inventory of 75 buildings, one building was selected as a numerical case-study to correlate the observed damage with the non-linear analyses. The result shows that the pre-1970s RC frame buildings performed as expected given the intensity of the ground motion shaking during the Canterbury earthquake. Given the brittle nature of this type of structure, it was demonstrated that more significant structural damage and higher probability of collapse could occur when the buildings were subjected to alternative input signals with different frequency content and duration characteristics and still compatible to the seismicity hazard for Christchurch CBD.
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.
A dramatic consequence of the Christchurch, New Zealand, earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 was the widespread liquefaction in the city. Part of the central business district (CBD) was badly affected by liquefaction but elsewhere large volumes of ejecta were not evident for those parts of the CBD where the upper layers in the soil profile are sandy gravel and gravelly sand. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the effect of the gravel permeability on the rise and dissipation of excess pore water pressure during cyclic loading of a soil profile idealised from Christchurch data. The Cyclic1D software, which performs one-dimensional non-linear effective stress site response analysis, was used. Permeability values associated with gravel were found to suppress the cyclic accumulation of excess pore water pressure in gravel layers. Given that there has not been any systematic measurement of the in situ permeability of the gravels in Christchurch, the modelling in the paper suggests that likely values for the bulk permeability of the gravel layers are within the range suggested in the geotechnical literature. However, the work reported is of wider application than Christchurch and emphasises the controlling influence of permeability on the accumulation and dissipation of cyclic pore pressures. VoR - Version of Record
Blog of Sandy Lees, a genealogist, taphophiliac, and ephemera collector. Reflects her interest in Canterbury history. Includes a section on the insurance woes the blogger had after the Christchurch earthquakes.
Information about contemporary popular music in Christchurch, New Zealand. The Band Together event was a fund raiser for the Canterbury earthquake can be found in the 13 October 2010 archived website.
Two students who helped organize the 10,000 strong student volunteer army during the Christchurch earthquake are going to Japan to help students there mobilize an army of their own.
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee has backed off on his threats to the Christchurch City Council and one of the New Zealand Greenpeace activists is freed from a Russian detention centre.
The Labour Christchurch East MP Lianne Dalziel says the city council has made a terrible decision about how it organises help for earthquake victims and it needs to be changed urgently.
How do you help your children understand the gravity of the Christchurch earthquake without them becoming too frightened or overwhelmed, and helping those children who've experienced the quake to move on.
The Panel Christmas Special in downtown Auckland atop the Tyler Street Garage, featuring many of the regular panellists from 2011. Due to a Checkpoint special covering the Christchurch earthquake, this was not broadcast.
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.
The days of aftershocks have got too much for the Wingfield family who are getting out of Christchurch in an effort to calm their deeply distressed children aged two and five.
Civil Engineer Professor Jason Ingham discusses his extensive projects investigating seismic retrofit of structures in earthquake regions he's been to over the past 12 months, Indonesia, Chile and of course, Christchurch.
The Green Party has spelt out how it would impose an earthquake levy on higher earning taxpayers, to fund the rebuild of Christchurch, if it becomes part of the next Government.
The Bishop of Christchurch has asked parishioners to think about the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Bishop Victoria Matthews is appealing to Canterbury Anglicans to give at least $100,000 for quake relief in Haiti.
Business owners have told the Christchurch City Council they are haemorrhaging thousands of dollars a week, while it decides whether or not to demolish their buildings following last month's earthquake.
The Earthquake Recovery Minister, Gerry Brownlee, is offside with the business community in Christchurch over the decision to permanently relocate nearly 500 public servants outside of the central business district.
A group of angry Christchurch locals are considering legal action against one of the country's biggest insurance companies because they say their earthquake claims are taking too long to settle.
The rebuild of central Christchurch has been taken out of the control of the city council and will now be managed by a newly formed unit within the Government's Earthquake Recovery Authority.
Professional and personal partners Victoria Flight and John Drew about the nutritional benefits of coconut oil, and the decision to develop their business 'Blue Coconut' after experiencing a deeply traumatic event in Christchurch's earthquake of February 2011.
The first passenger train from Piction to Christchurch since the devastating Kaikōura earthquake has arrived in the Garden City - Kathy Templeman was on board and says it was an emotional experience.
Mindful Mover was born after the Christchurch earthquake, the anxiety and stress caused by the continuous rattling. From there it's grown to help young people dealing with bullying, troubles at home, and learning difficulties.
A CEO who blew the whistle on his own company, Eddie the Eagle remembers soaring and in Dateline Pacific, lessons from the Christchurch earthquakes are being applied in Fiji to help people heal
The end gable of the Library Chambers has crumbled, and the area has been cordoned off with fencing and cones. In the background is the new Christchurch City Council's Civic Offices.
The jury's still out on whether changes at the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority represent a winding back of the government's involvement in the rebuild of Christchurch or simply a shift in its focus.
Police link a West Coast attack on two tourists with the death of another woman in Christchurch. A swarm of earthquakes in Hawkes Bay and Teina Pora will be released on parole.