Christchurch 6.3 earthquake on 22 Feb 2011

As they say - sh#$%t happens. It so happens that we had a major afterschock - this one centered in Lyttelton and only 5 km deep. This made for one hell of a shake. The image below was taken by someone up on the nearby Port Hills overlooking the Christchurch Central City and surrounding suburbs.  The image was taken within less then one minute after the shaking had finished and that is not smoke - that is the DUST from everything collapsing!!! What an amazing view and yeah - as a City we are  in a great deal of trouble!!



Here is a before and after shot of Durham Street Methodist Church.  The Church was structurally damaged after the September 4 Earthquake and can be seen to be braced with the steel to make it "SAFE".  After the 22 Feb shake - well as you see there is not a lot left standing.  Sadly we think three people may have died - trying to remove and save the rather large and unique Organ from the inside.   Further - there is a unconfirmed rumor that one of the person inside is/was our Optician who has a longstanding interest in music etc. RIP folks


Incredibly - it came down on the day before our 26th Wedding anniversary. Yup - we got married their, had the kids baptized there - so Mamabear is taking this rather hard.
As you can see the door into the building is the only thing left standing.







Another famous landmark - often referred to as the Papanui Building - at the (what would have been at some stage) the Papanui Round-about. After Sep 4 it had cracks in its walls and was highly unstable, and after Feb 22 it moved every time traffic went passed it. I walked past this building every day - soooo

Here is whats left of the building.  It had to come down - it was a danger to the road users.  Most criminally of it all - it has some NZ native timber inside (Kauri and Rimu) that was the original building material and now no longer can be recycled. What a waste

Repair works at the Papanui Methodist church.  The Spire had to be lowered (which can just be seen in the middle of the trees shadow) and some of the bricks had to be lowered.  There is also a crack running full length top to bottom so who knows how much work this will involve.

At point of writing there is no power for more then 60% of Christchurch and running water is a luxury (a n d the water has to be boiled).  I shall have to get the spade out later and start digging a deep hole - the City wide Sewage system has been broken and cant be used.  And yes - you feel every aftershock, every time.  Sigh

Mother Nature - you are on notice - leave my beautiful City alone now - you had your fun - now please - take a hint - bugger of, get lost, take a hike . . . . . . .


28 February
Oh yeah- see we have this thing in scouting- as long as you can still laugh when disaster hits - then things can not be too bad. So when I found this pic on the net amongst the many depressing pictures - I could not resist and have a good chuckle - so here it is shared like.
Enjoy

Christchurch rocks again

 yup - another nice BIG afterschock - right in town
There is extensive damage and some people are hurt

look at this earth graph