Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Press Building, Cathedral Square. Top floor collapsed during the February 22 earthquake".
A photograph of the east side of the badly-damaged Press building on the edge of Cathedral Square. The Novotel building can be seen behind.
Looking north from Worcester Street towards the recently-occupied Press building on Gloucester Street. In the background is the PricewaterhouseCoopers building.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "PricewaterhouseCoopers Building in Armagh Street viewed from Worcester Street".
A photograph of earthquake-damaged buildings on Worcester Street. Rubble and scaffolding cover the road. The NewstalkZB building can be seen in the background.
St John Ambulance personnel preparing an oxygen mask while standing over a stretcher loaded with medical supplies. Behind them, emergency personnel can be seen searching the ruins of the collapsed Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street for trapped people. Over their heads, a member of the Fire Service in a cherry picker is spraying water on the fire burning in the building. Smoke is billowing from the building.
A St John Ambulance personnel preparing an oxygen mask while standing over a stretcher loaded with medical supplies. Behind him, emergency personnel can be seen searching the ruins of the collapsed Canterbury Television Building for on Madras Street for trapped people. Fire Service personnel have sprayed a jet of water onto the fire burning in the intact section of the building. Smoke is billowing from the building.
An aerial photograph of Cathedral Square. Captions added by BeckerFraserPhotos identify the demolition sites of key buildings.
Page 4 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 11 December 2012.
Seismic isolation is an effective technology for significantly reducing damage to buildings and building contents. However, its application to light-frame wood buildings has so far been unable to overcome cost and technical barriers such as susceptibility to movement during high-wind loading. The precursor to research in the field of isolation of residential buildings was the 1994 Northridge Earthquake (6.7 MW) in the United States and the 1995 Kobe Earthquake (6.9 MW) in Japan. While only a small number of lives were lost in residential buildings in these events, the economic impact was significant with over half of earthquake recovery costs given to repair and reconstruction of residential building damage. A value case has been explored to highlight the benefits of seismically isolated residential buildings compared to a standard fixed-base dwellings for the Wellington region. Loss data generated by insurance claim information from the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake has been used by researchers to determine vulnerability functions for the current light-frame wood building stock. By further considering the loss attributed to drift and acceleration sensitive components, and a simplified single degree of freedom (SDOF) building model, a method for determining vulnerability functions for seismic isolated buildings was developed. Vulnerability functions were then applied directly in a loss assessment using the GNS developed software, RiskScape. Vulnerability was shown to dramatically reduce for isolated buildings compared to an equivalent fixed-base building and as a result, the monetary savings in a given earthquake scenario were significant. This work is expected to drive further interest for development of solutions for the seismic isolation of residential dwellings, of which one option is further considered and presented herein.
Seismic isolation is an effective technology for significantly reducing damage to buildings and building contents. However, its application to light-frame wood buildings has so far been unable to overcome cost and technical barriers such as susceptibility of light-weight buildings to movement under high-wind loading. The 1994 Northridge Earthquake (6.7 MW) in the United States, 1995 Kobe Earthquake (6.9 MW) in Japan and 2011 Christchurch Earthquake (6.7 Mw) all highlighted significant loss to light-frame wood buildings with over half of earthquake recovery costs allocated to their repair and reconstruction. This poster presents a value case to highlight the benefits of seismically isolated residential buildings compared to the standard fixed-base dwellings for the Wellington region. Loss data generated by insurance claim information from the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake has been used to determine vulnerability functions for the current light-frame wood building stock. By using a simplified single degree of freedom (SDOF) building model, methods for determining vulnerability functions for seismic isolated buildings are developed. Vulnerability functions are then applied directly in a loss assessment to determine the Expected Annual Loss. Vulnerability was shown to dramatically reduce for isolated buildings compared to an equivalent fixed-base building resulting in significant monetary savings, justifying the value case. A state-of-the-art timber modelling software, Timber3D, is then used to model a typical residential building with and without seismic isolation to assess the performance of a proposed seismic isolation system which addresses the technical and cost issues.
The policing of building safety systems is being cut back nationwide. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is reducing its monitoring of the building warrants of fitness scheme that covers 16 crucial safety systems including fire measures. This coincides with it having to do more checks on what councils are doing regarding fences around pools and earthquake-prone buildings. The cutback is despite ministry reviews which show many councils do little to audit the building warrants they issue. An inspector of building safety systems and adviser on warrants, Charlie Loughnan of Canterbury, told our reporter Phil Pennington that less monitoring is not a good idea.
Case study unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings that were seismically retrofitted prior to the 2010/11 Canterbury earthquake sequence and exhibited successful performance during these earthquakes are presented herein. Selected buildings were divided into the following categories based on size and complexity: (1) simple, single storey box type buildings (i.e. electrical substations), (2) common and simple commercial buildings, and (3) large and complex clay brick and stone URM buildings. The retrofitted case study URM buildings were evaluated based on overall structural seismic performance as well as the categories of initial seismic design, heritage preservation, architectural appeal, and cost. Detailed observations of 4 representative case study buildings and a summary of findings are reported herein. http://db.nzsee.org.nz/2017/Orals.htm
During the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, Reinforced Concrete Frame with Masonry Infill (RCFMI) buildings were subjected to significant lateral loads. A survey conducted by Christchurch City Council (CCC) and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) documented 10,777 damaged buildings, which included building characteristics (building address, the number of storeys, the year of construction, and building use) and post-earthquake damage observations (building safety information, observed damage, level of damage, and current state of the buildings). This data was merged into the Canterbury Earthquake Building Assessment (CEBA) database and was utilised to generate empirical fragility curves using the lognormal distribution method. The proposed fragility curves were expected to provide a reliable estimation of the mean vulnerability for commercial RCFMI buildings in the region. http://www.13thcms.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Symposium-Info-and-Presentation-Schedule.pdf VoR - Version of Record
A banner listing the 115 people who died in the CTV building collapse.
A Civil Defence personnel member speaking with an injured survivor from the collapsed Pyne Gould Corporation building near the base of the building.
Emergency personnel searching for people trapped in the collapsed Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street. Smoke can be seen rising from the ruins.
Emergency personnel searching for people trapped in the collapsed Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street. Smoke can be seen rising from the ruins.
Emergency personnel searching for people trapped in the collapsed Canterbury Television Building on Madras Street. Smoke can be seen rising from the ruins.
Building rubble from part of the Terrace on the Park apartment complex. Two buildings in the complex required urgent demolition, and the other buildings in the complex will eventually be demolished.
The first report into the damage done to three large buildings in the Christchurch earthquake is recommending urgent steps be taken around the country to strengthen buildings with stairwells.
The Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission will hear this week that the cost of upgrading the city's unreinforced masonry buildings is more than the buildings are worth.
The badly-damaged Strategy building on Victoria Street. The outer walls on the bottom two stories have collapsed into the building below.
The site of a demolished building on the corner of Bealey Avenue and Victoria Street where steel has been laid for the foundations of a new building.
Damage to the Kenton Chambers building. Diagonal cracking between the windows shows that the building has suffered major structural damage.
Damage to a building on Manchester Street. The large diagonal cracks between the windows indicate the building has suffered serious structural damage.
The demolition of an apartment building on Peterborough Street. A long-reach excavator is being used to tear the building down.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Former Government Life building on the left, Cathedral Square".
The C.F. Cotter & Co building stands alone, with the buildings on either side having been demolished. A sign on the building reads "Buy me don't bowl me!
Building rubble from part of the Terrace on the Park apartment complex. Two buildings in the complex required urgent demolition, and the other buildings in the complex will eventually be demolished.