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Images, UC QuakeStudies

Damage to the garden of a house in Richmond. Liquefaction is visible among the plants and on the driveway, and the driveway is badly cracked. The photographer comments, "These photos show our old house in River Rd. Water and silt have flattened the long grass in the back garden. The growth right of centre is suckers growing from the stump of a prunus tree we had felled last year. The section of fence between us and our neighbour fell down in the Sep 4 quake".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Detail of damage to a house in Richmond. A double-brick wall has collapsed, and a gap is visible between the house and its foundation. The photographer comments, "These photos show our old house in River Rd and recovery work around Richmond and St Albans. The house and the concrete patio are now 15cm apart. The house took half the dining room's remaining bricks with it as it jumped off the foundations. It gives a good visual indication of the displacement".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Damage to a residential property in Richmond. The brick wall of the garage has collapse inward, and the roof fallen in on top of it. The photographer comments, "These photos show our old house in River Rd and recovery work around Richmond and St Albans. The neighbours behind us used the kayak to get in to their house - it's flooded by Dudley Creek which runs behind the block, plus major liquefaction. Our old garage provides a good spot to park it".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Detail of damage to a house in Richmond. A double-brick wall has collapsed. A wire loop which formerly tied the two layers of bricks together has pulled out from one of the layers, showing how the two parts of the wall moved apart during the shaking. The photographer comments, "These photos show our old house in River Rd and recovery work around Richmond and St Albans. The remaining double brick by the back door has been further smashed and twisted".

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Damage to a house in Richmond. The foundation is all that remains of one room, and the exposed interior wall has been covered with builders' paper for protection. Weeds grow between cracks in the concrete patio. The photographer comments, "Revisiting our abandoned house. Cracked patio. The wooden floor is all that remains of a sunny living space with bifold doors, opening the house to the garden. This was so broken on 4/9/10 that it was immediately demolished".

Research papers, The University of Auckland Library

The Catholic Cathedral is classified as a category 1 listed heritage building constructed largely of unreinforced stone masonry, and was significantly damaged in the recent Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. In the 2010 event the building presented slight to moderta damage, meanwhile in the 2011 one experienced ground shaking in excess of its capacity leading to block failures and partial collapse of parts of the building, which left the building standing but still posing a significant hazard. In this paper we discuss the approach to develop the earthquake analysis of the building by 3D numerical simulations, and the results are compared/calibrated with the observed damage of the 2010 earthquake. Very accurate records were obtained during both earthquakes due to a record station located least than 80 m of distance from the building and used in the simulations. Moreover it is included in the model the soil structure interaction because it was observed that the ground and foundation played an important role on the seismic behavior of the structure. A very good agreement was found between the real observed damage and the nonlinear dynamic simulations described trough inelastic deformation (cracking) and building´s performance.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Validating dynamic responses of engineered systems subjected to simulated ground motions is essential in scrutinising the applicability of simulated ground motions for engineering demand analyses. This paper compares the responses of two 3D building models subjected to recorded and simulated ground motions scaled to the NZS1170.5 design response spectrum, in order to evaluate the applicability of simulated ground motions for use in conventional engineering practice in New Zealand. The buildings were designed according to the NZS1170.5 and physically constructed in Christchurch prior to the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes. 40 recorded ground motions from the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake, along with the simulated ground motions for this event from Razafindrakoto et al. (2018) are considered. The seismic responses of the structures are principally quantified via the peak floor acceleration and maximum inter-storey drift ratio. Overall, the results indicate a general agreement in seismic demands obtained using the recorded and simulated ensembles of ground motions and provide further evidence that simulated ground motions using state-of-the-art methods can be used in code-based structural performance assessments inplace of, or in combination with, ensembles of recorded ground motions.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

A major hazard accompanying earthquake shaking in areas of steep topography is the detachment of rocks from bedrock outcrops that subsequently slide, roll, or bounce downslope (i.e. rockfalls). The 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence caused recurrent and severe rockfall in parts of southern Christchurch. Coseismic rockfall caused five fatalities and significant infrastructural damage during the 2011 Mw 6.2 Christchurch earthquake. Here we examine a rockfall site in southern Christchurch in detail using geomorphic mapping, lidar analysis, geochronology (cosmogenic 3He dating, radiocarbon dating, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) from quartz, infrared stimulated luminescence from K-feldspar), numerical modeling of rockfall boulder trajectories, and ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs). Rocks fell from the source cliff only in earthquakes with interpolated peak ground velocities exceeding ~10 cm/s; hundreds of smaller earthquakes did not produce rockfall. On the basis of empirical observations, GMPEs and age chronologies we attribute paleo-rockfalls to strong shaking in prehistoric earthquakes. We conclude that earthquake shaking of comparable intensity to the strongest contemporary earthquakes in Christchurch last occurred at this site approximately 5000 to 7000 years ago, and that in some settings, rockfall deposits provide useful proxies for past strong ground motions.

Images, Alexander Turnbull Library

Refers to the government's earthquake response legislation and the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill. 26 experts in constitutional law from all six of the country's law faculties have penned a letter condemning the Government's earthquake response legislation. No sooner was their work in the public eye than the similarly flawed Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Bill was reported back from a select committee, with a recommendation that it pass. It also goes far beyond what is required to get things done. In bypassing the normal consent process, the bill says the authority does not have to hold hearings on applications and that its decisions can be challenged in the High Court only on points of law. Effectively, the legislation asks New Zealanders to accept that the Rugby World Cup Minister knows best. It is he who knows how the event must be run. Precisely the same attitude pervades the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act. This hands individual Government ministers the power to change almost every law, thereby handing Parliament's normal law-making role to the Executive. Their decisions cannot be challenged in any court'. (NZ Herald editorial - 1 October 2010) Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).

Images, UC QuakeStudies

Large cracks run through the brick cladding of this house in Wainoni. The photographer comments, "During the numerous earthquakes in Christchurch the land which ran alongside the Avon river on Avonside Drive slumped towards the waterway. Houses which were wooden framed and had an external brick veneer started to sink into the liquefied soil. This caused the brick walls to crack, but the houses' occupants though shook up were saved by the wooden framework from the houses collapsing on them".

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Active faults capable of generating highly damaging earthquakes may not cause surface rupture (i.e., blind faults) or cause surface ruptures that evade detection due to subsequent burial or erosion by surface processes. Fault populations and earthquake frequency-­‐magnitude distributions adhere to power laws, implying that faults too small to cause surface rupture but large enough to cause localized strong ground shaking densely populate continental crust. The rupture of blind, previously undetected faults beneath Christchurch, New Zealand in a suite of earthquakes in 2010 and 2011, including the fatal 22 February 2011 moment magnitude (Mw) 6.2 Christchurch earthquake and other large aftershocks, caused a variety of environmental impacts, including major rockfall, severe liquefaction, and differential surface uplift and subsidence. All of these effects occurred where geologic evidence for penultimate effects of the same nature existed. To what extent could the geologic record have been used to infer the presence of proximal, blind and / or unidentified faults near Christchurch? In this instance, we argue that phenomena induced by high intensity shaking, such as rock fragmentation and rockfall, revealed the presence of proximal active faults in the Christchurch area prior to the recent earthquake sequence. Development of robust earthquake shaking proxy datasets should become a higher scientific priority, particularly in populated regions.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Prior to the devastating 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, the University of Canterbury (UC) was renowned for its graduates’ academic preparation and its staff’s research outputs. The town/gown relationship was aloof and strained due to UC’s move from the CBD in the 1970s and students being seen as troublemakers. Despite its vision of people prepared to make a difference, the University’s students and staff were not seen as making a difference in the local community or as being engaged citizens. 
This changed when over 9,000 UC students mobilized themselves into the Student Volunteer Army to provide immediate relief across Christchurch following the four major quakes of 2010 and 2011. Suddenly, UC students were seen as saviors, not miscreants and a focus on citizenship education as part of the University’s strategic direction began to take shape. 
Based on qualitative and quantitative research conducted at UC over the past four years, this interactive presentation will highlight the findings, conclusions, and implications of how the University has been transformed into a recognized, international leader in citizenship education. By integrating students’ community service into their academic studies, the University has changed its persona while students have gained academically, civically, and personally.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Disasters that significantly affect people typically result in the production of documents detailing disaster lessons. This was the case in the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes, as government and emergency response agencies, community organisations, and the media, engaged in the practice of producing and reporting disaster lessons. This thesis examines the disaster lessons that were developed by emergent groups following the Canterbury earthquakes (4 September 2010 and 22 February 2011). It adopts a Foucauldian analysis approach to investigate both the construction of disaster lessons and to document how this practice has come to dominate postdisaster activity following the Canterbury earthquakes. The study involved an analysis of academic literature, public documents and websites and interviews with key members of a range of Canterbury based emergent community groups. This material was used to generate a genealogy of disaster lessons, which was given in order to generate an account of how disaster lessons emerged and have come to dominate as a practice of disaster management. The thesis then examines the genealogy through the concept of governmentality so as to demonstrate how this discourse of disaster lessons has come to be used as a governing rationale that shapes and guides the emergent groups conduct in postdisaster New Zealand.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

A woman badly injured in the Christchurch earthquake is astonished a new building in the city has been found to have serious seismic flaws. The empty new office building at 230 High Street has multiple problems in its earthquake design that the city council was warned about almost two years ago. Construction of the seven-storey building continued even after those warnings in December 2017. Susie Ferguson speaks to University of Canterbury lecturer Ann Brower, who was crushed after falling masonry fell on her bus during the February twenty-second 2011 earthquake.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

A Christchurch insurance advocate says the new Canterbury Earthquake Insurance Tribunal may finally be the solution to get unresolved claims from the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes settled. The government has launched an earthquake insurance tribunal to try to finally resolve outstanding insurance claims from the Canterbury earthquakes. Dean Lester, who acts as a insurance claim preparer in Christchurch, told our reporter Rachel Graham the tribunal will have the power to get on and make a decision on the key sticking points, without people facing the huge cost of a high court trial.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

A review of the week's news including: Continuing industrial trouble at Ports Of Auckland, the National Road Policing manager Paula Rose on holiday road toll figures, Southland faces drought conditions, researchers come up with a solution that could lower the cost of rebuilding the earthquake devastated Christchurch CBD, a 24 year old woman with autism wins a 2011 attitude award for raising awareness of the condition, New Zealand Tasman Sea rowers hope to finally make some progress and how they celebrate New year at the bottom of the World.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

RNZ is launching a new podcast today marking the tenth anniversary of Christchurch earthquake. It's called Fragments: Firsthand accounts of the February 2011 earthquakes. The podcast features interviews done with quake survivors recorded in the months following the devastating earthquake recorded by locals Julie Hutton and Sandra Close. RNZ checked in with some of the people Hutton and Close spoke to ten years on from the disaster. Katy Gosset produced and presented the podcast. An earlier version of this article failed to reference the work from Julie Hutton and Sandra Close.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

A Christchurch man with terminal cancer is using his final days to battle his insurance company, a decade on from the deadly earthquakes. Brian Shaw owns an apartment that's in a block of 11. They were all damaged in 2011. Shaw is a building consent officer. He says getting technical reports and chasing a settlement with insurer Vero has already cost the unit owners about $400,000, and they still have not even made it to court. On Friday morning he will be protesting outside Vero's Christchurch office, along with other unhappy customers.

Audio, Radio New Zealand

A scathing inquiry into the Earthquake Commission's handling of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes could mean huge change for how it handles claims. The Government says it's committed to implementing all of the recommendations from the inquiry, including improving its communication, planning and preparedness and dispute resolution. John Goddard, an insurance and employment law barrister who dealt with more than 4000 claims at the time, says repairs were handled poorly and the new recommendations won't cover all the bases. John Goddard and Melanie Bourke of EQC Fix speak to Corin Dann.

Videos, UC QuakeStudies

A video of interviews with four enterprising young Christchurch residents recorded two years after the 22 February 2011 earthquake. The video includes interviews with Gap Filler Director Coralie Winn, Arts Centre Director Andrew Lovatt, artist Mike Hewson, and Student Volunteer Army leader Jason Pembleton. The interviewees are asked four questions: 'What do you think Christchurch city centre will look like in 10 years?', 'What do you most want to see in the new city?', 'What do you miss most about the old city?', and 'What keeps you in Christchurch?'.