An insurance expert says a Supreme Court decision yesterday could open lawyers up to legal action from anybody who has bought a home in Christchurch since the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. The court's decision makes it clear that insurers cannot be held liable for meeting the full replacement cost of a quake damaged home by the subsequent purchaser of that house.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Maling Street in Avonside. From left: Charlie Tarawa, Tamatea Briggs (12) sit under a make shift shelter while they wait for a wood fire to boil water. They are too scared to go in the house so are sleeping on the lawn".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Maling Street in Avonside. From left: Charlie Tarawa, and Ngarita Briggs (8) sit under a make-shift shelter while they wait for a wood fire to boil water. They are too scared to go in the house so are sleeping on the lawn".
A video of an interview with Hamish Griffen and Leila Chrystall about their property in the Flockton Basin. Griffen and Chrystall had to leave their house after the flooding made it unliveable. This video was part of a series of videos about residents in the flood-prone Flockton Basin.
A broken concrete floor slab in a residential property. The photographer comments, "Now that our house is to be rebuilt some time in the distant future, I decided to relay the loose and broken tiles. I took some photos to show what lies beneath".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Maling Street in Avonside. From left: Tamatea Briggs (12) and Charlie Tarawa under a makeshift shelter while they wait for a wood fire to boil water. They are too scared to go in the house so are sleeping on the lawn".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Pete Davey from Ambrose Heal Furniture. Owner Pete Davey has had to demolish his building and work out of a house at the back. He's going to rebuild, and has put a cheeky sign up saying that he has 'survived the recession, Chinese imports, and the earthquake'".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Maling Street in Avonside. From left: Charlie Tarawa, and Ngarita Briggs (8) sit under a make shift shelter while they wait for a wood fire to boil water. They are too scared to go in the house so are sleeping on the lawn".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Maling Street in Avonside. From left: Charlie Tarawa, and Ngarita Briggs (8) sit under a make shift shelter while they wait for a wood fire to boil water. They are too scared to go in the house so are sleeping on the lawn".
People look through the cordon fence at the corner of Colombo and Hereford Streets. On the left is the former site of Camera House, and on the right is the ANZ building, with its ground floor windows boarded up. Taken on a day when a walkway was opened up between Re:Start Mall and Cathedral Square to allow temporary public access.
St Marys Church
St Marys Church
The brick facade has fallen from the former Princess Cinema in New Brighton, exposing the rooms inside, and crushing a car parked below. The photographer comments, "The front of the old Princess Cinema in New Brighton after the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand on 22 February. Under the pile of bricks is a luckily unoccupied blue car. The word CLEAR on the broken facade is to show that there is no one in the car. This building has now been knocked down as it was so dangerous".
Bricks have fallen from the walls of the former Princess Cinema in New Brighton, exposing the interior. The photographer comments, "Back of the old Princess Cinema in New Brighton after the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand on 22 February. In this picture you can see inside the old cinema curtains. This building has now been knocked down as it was so dangerous".
Surface rupture of the previously unrecognised Greendale Fault extended west-east for ~30 km across alluvial plains west of Christchurch, New Zealand, during the Mw 7.1 Darfield (Canterbury) earthquake of September 2010. Surface rupture displacement was predominantly dextral strike-slip, averaging ~2.5 m, with maxima of ~5 m. Vertical displacement was generally less than 0.75 m. The surface rupture deformation zone ranged in width from ~30 to 300 m, and comprised discrete shears, localised bulges and, primarily, horizontal dextral flexure. About a dozen buildings, mainly single-storey houses and farm sheds, were affected by surface rupture, but none collapsed, largely because most of the buildings were relatively flexible and resilient timber-framed structures and also because deformation was distributed over a relatively wide zone. There were, however, notable differences in the respective performances of the buildings. Houses with only lightly-reinforced concrete slab foundations suffered moderate to severe structural and non-structural damage. Three other buildings performed more favourably: one had a robust concrete slab foundation, another had a shallow-seated pile foundation that isolated ground deformation from the superstructure, and the third had a structural system that enabled the house to tilt and rotate as a rigid body. Roads, power lines, underground pipes, and fences were also deformed by surface fault rupture and suffered damage commensurate with the type of feature, its orientation to the fault, and the amount, sense and width of surface rupture deformation.
A man and a woman wearily face one another wondering how they should celebrate two years of frustration. Context: relates to continuing frustration over lack of progress by many people whose houses have been damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes. Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).
A photograph of a wire fence at the border of 406 Oxford Terrace. 406 Oxford Terrace is the former site of Donna Allfrey's house which was demolished after her land was zoned Red. In front of the fence, gravel has been spread over the ground.
The seismic survey truck T-Rex (from University of Texas) was in Bexley and Pacific Park a few days ago and may have left this calling card on the front lawn of my old "red zone" house. Obviously the geotechs will know what it means.
A rat in a business suit representing 'insurance companies' carries a briefcase labelled 'Total replacement policies' and follows a fellow rat into a large hole 'loop holes' that leads into a collapsed building. The rat says 'Woo-hoo! Home sweet home!' Context - Problems for people whose houses were damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes. One of the options presented to residents in the red zone, ideal for people with replacement policies, was the government bought your land, and you dealt directly with your insurers about your house. However they got a shock when insurers told them they won't replace their homes, they'll only repair them, even though they're earmarked for certain demolition. Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Chris Lin and his wife Caleen Xue at the door of their cool store safe where they slept for three weeks after the 4 September earthquake to guard what was left of their stock, while their teenage children rented a single room in a house up the road for their safety".
Topics - The Mayor of Christchurch says he's confident the city council will speed up the processing of building consents and won't lose its authority to grant them. Are Christchurch's frustrations with the Earthquake Commission a result of some kind of misunderstanding. Media hype's being blamed for skyrocketing house prices in parts of Auckland.
A video about a memorial wall in the Linwood Crematorium Memorial Garden which collapsed during the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The wall housed nearly 100 people's ashes. Staff from the Cremation Society of Canterbury collected the ashes and stored them in bags until the wall could be rebuilt.
A video of Charlie Gates investigating the Christchurch City Council's plan to rejuvenate New Brighton mall. Gates interviews Sherry Dhamija, owner of Penguin House Dairy, Kate Thomas, manager of New Brighton Florist, and Colleen Biggs of Pegasus Tattoo about how business is going and what they think the area needs to be revitalised.
A PDF copy of pages 370-371 of the book Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV. The pages document the transitional project 'Orange Tree'. Photos, except sewing, by Joyce Majendie. Sewing photo by Pete Majendie.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Maling Street in Avonside. From left: Charlie Tarawa, Tamatea Briggs (12) and Ngarita Briggs (8) sit under a make-shift shelter while they wait for a wood fire to boil water. They are too scared to go in the house so are sleeping on the lawn".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Chris Lin and his wife Caleen Xue at the door of their cool store safe where they slept for three weeks after the 4 September earthquake to guard what was left of their stock, while their teenage children rented a single room in a house up the road for their safety".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Maling Street in Avonside. From left: Ngarita Briggs (8), Walton Briggs and Paula Grant sit under a makeshift shelter while they wait for a wood fire to boil water. They are too scared to go in the house so are sleeping on the lawn".
A couple of Christchurch men are collecting letterboxes from the city's red-zoned suburbs, to create sculptures to tell the stories of the homes which have been demolished since the February 2011 earthquake. One of the men is Evan Smith - who co-chairs a group called the Avon-Otakaro Network. It's working toward creating a riverside park along the Avon, where the houses once stood.
one of Christchurch's abandoned suburbs. The land moved - bricks and block walls everywhere collapsed - two multi story buildings folded - 184 people died. Wooden framed houses largely stayed up, many concrete slabs cracked, power poles leaned in liquid ground, surface bubbled, services ruptured .... damage to the cbd still gets the most cover...
Iroquois Flying Over Our House (02.03.2011) Woolston Christchurch Canterbury New Zealand © 2011 Phil Le Cren Photo Taken With: Canon EOS 1000D + Canon EF/EF-S lenses + 10.1 effective megapixels + 2.5-inch TFT color LCD monitor + Eye-level pentamirror SLR + Live View shooting. + EOS Built-in Sensor cleaning system + ...