Cracks on the facade of the Oxford Terrace Baptist Church. Bracing has been placed against the facade to support the building and limit further damage from aftershocks.
Damage to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. Straw bales have been used as packing between the building and the shipping containers supporting its north-west corner.
A photograph of the remains of buildings on Manchester Street. On the left, the remaining facade of the Excelsior Hotel building is being supported by a stack of coloured shipping containers.
A photograph of the remains of buildings on Manchester Street. On the left, the remaining facade of the Excelsior Hotel building is being supported by a stack of coloured shipping containers.
A view down Avonside Drive showing cracks in the road from the 4 September 2010 earthquake. Concrete blocks have been placed next to power poles to provide support.
An example of a briefing provided to support staff hosting an event so they fully understood their roles and the focus of the event. The document was created in 2012.
A photograph of a military armoured vehicle parked on the site of a demolished building. The vehicle has been used to support advertising signs for a relocated business.
Photograph captioned by the New Zealand Defence Force, "NZ Police arriving at Christchurch Air Force Air Movements terminal to provide support for the earthquake effort".
An Air Force Boeing overshadowed by an American C-17 at Christchurch Airport. The Boeing supported evacuations from Christchurch after the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
Photograph captioned by the New Zealand Defence Force, "NZ Police arriving at Christchurch Air Force Air Movements terminal to provide support for the earthquake effort".
Photograph captioned by the New Zealand Defence Force, "NZ Police arriving at Christchurch Air Force Air Movements terminal to provide support for the earthquake effort".
The rapid classification of building damage states or placards after an earthquake is vital for enabling an efficient emergency response and informed decision-making for rehabilitation and recovery purposes. Traditional methods rely heavily on inspector-led on-site surveys, which are often time-consuming, resource-intensive, and susceptible to human error. This study introduces a machine learning-supported surrogate model designed to streamline the assessment of building damage, focusing on the automated assignment of damage placards within the context of New Zealand's post-earthquake evaluation frameworks. The study evaluates two key safety evaluation protocols—Rapid Building Assessment (RBA) and Detailed Damage Evaluation (DDE)—and integrates corresponding databases derived from the 2010–2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence (CES) in Christchurch. Six ML classifiers—Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN), Gradient Boosting Classifier (GBC), and Gradient Bagging (GBag)—were rigorously tested across both databases. The results indicate that the RF-based surrogate model outperforms the other classifiers across both RBA and DDE protocols. Two distinct sets of critical predictors have been further identified for each protocol, allowing for the rapid retrieval of essential data for future on-site surveys, while retaining the RF model's predictive accuracy. The developed surrogate model provides a pragmatic tool for practising engineers to rapidly assign placards to damaged structures and for policymakers and building owners to make informed recovery decisions for earthquake-affected buildings
A photograph of the new Press Building on Gloucester Street under construction. To the right, the former Theatre Royal can be seen with wooden beams placed under the awning for support.
The badly damaged Carlton Hotel on Papanui Road. One wall of the upper storey has collapsed, exposing the rooms within, and bricks litter the footpath below. Bracing have been placed against the building as support.
Damage to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The south-west corner of the building has collapsed, exposing the rooms inside, and the north-west corner is supported by shipping containers.
A photograph of the hour angle setting circle from the Townsend Telescope. The left side of the support arm was bent out of shape during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
A photograph of a house with retaining walls supported by large bags of concrete. The photograph is captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "On the corner of Ticehurst Road and Bridle Path, Lyttelton".
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Colombo Street bridge, badly damaged in the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The large steel beams supporting the bridge are distorted".
A view down High Street, looking north-west from the Tuam Street intersection. On the left a line of shipping containers support the facade of a damaged building. Rubble from demolished buildings can be seen in the distance.
A photograph of an abandoned property at 72 Arncliff Street in Bexley. Wooden bracing is supporting the garage and a broken office chair is lying in the driveway.
Damage to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The south-west corner of the building has collapsed, exposing the rooms inside, and the north-west corner is supported by shipping containers.
A photograph of the intersection of High Street, Lichfield Street and Manchester Street. Stacks of coloured shipping containers can be seen supporting the facades of buildings on both Lichfield Street and Manchester Street.
Damage to the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The south-west corner of the building has collapsed, exposing the rooms inside, and the north-west corner is supported by shipping containers.
A spray-painted message on a wall of Englefield Lodge reads "We will try to save this house." Wooden bracing supports the wall. The photographer comments, "A bike ride around the CBD. Englefield, Christchurch's oldest house in Fitzgerald Ave".
A photograph of the damaged Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. The tower on the south-west corner of the building has collapsed. Shipping containers support the far wall of the building.
A photograph of the Moko cafe building on the corner of Gloucester Street and New Regent Street. Scaffolding is being used to support part of the awning and a yellow sticker can be seen on the door.
Photograph captioned by the New Zealand Defence Force, "A Squadron 3 Iroquois helicopter taking off at the Christchurch Airport. The Iroquois helicopters operated in support of the Christchurch Earthquake effort".
A photograph of street art on a support pillar of the Durham Street overbridge. The artwork depicts tag writing in shades of pink, surrounded by previously written tag art in various other colours.
A close-up photograph of the damage to the support arm of the clock hour setting circle from the Townsend Telescope. The arm was bent out of shape during the 22 February 2011 earthquake.
A submission produced by the consultancies for the ACENZ Innovate NZ Awards of Excellence 2016, providing details about how the design team supporting SCIRT was formed, and how successful design delivery was achieved.