Almost 100 jobs to go at Grand Chancellor Hotel
Audio, Radio New Zealand
Almost 100 people are losing their jobs at Christchurch's Hotel Grand Chancellor this Friday, the latest in a series of significant job losses in the wake of the earthquake.
Almost 100 people are losing their jobs at Christchurch's Hotel Grand Chancellor this Friday, the latest in a series of significant job losses in the wake of the earthquake.
The Canterbury earthquake's Royal Commission has heard that the Hotel Grand Chancellor was checked for earthquake damage - and cleared for use four times prior to the February 22nd earthquake.
As for the demolition of the building, The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority deconstruction manager, Warwick Isaacs, says while it will be managed carefully, it is still risky.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Canterbury Earthquakes will today begin to examine the failure of the building that's come to symbolise the damage to the central city.
More than ten weeks after being damaged beyond repair by the Christchurch earthquake, there is still no decision about how or when the Grand Chancellor Hotel will be demolished.
On the day when the second Christchurch earthquake struck, Andy and Amber Cleverley were trapped at the top of the Grand Chancellor Hotel with an American man they only knew as Jeremy.
Film and TV reviewer Tamar Munch takes a look at the new US drama The Outsider, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, and Help Is On The Way, a Kiwi documentary based on the 6.3 Christchurch earthquake and what happened to the 36 guest trapped on the top floors of the Hotel Grand Chancellor.
On 22 February 2011, Christchurch police sargeant Dave Harvey was outside the earthquake-damaged Hotel Grand Chancellor on Cashel Street, unsure if anyone was trapped inside. In case they were, he grabbed a can of spray paint and painted 'Help is on the way' in one-metre high letters on the road. Harvey's quick thinking really helped the people trapped in the hotel, says Clare Mackey, producer of the new documentary Help is on the Way.