Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Buildings demolished on corner of Cranford Street and Westminster Street".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Buildings demolished on corner of Cranford Street and Westminster Street".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Christchurch Earthquake aftermath. Condemned building on the corner of St Asaph and Barbadoes Street".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Buildings demolished on corner of Cranford Street and Westminster Street".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Buildings demolished on corner of Cranford Street and Westminster Street".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Major earthquake hits Christchurch. Buildings demolished on corner of Cranford Street and Westminster Street".
A digger works on top of a pile of soil and building rubble.
This research employs a deterministic seismic risk assessment methodology to assess the potential damage and loss at meshblock level in the Christchurch CBD and Mount Pleasant primarily due to building damage caused by earthquake ground shaking. Expected losses in terms of dollar value and casualties are calculated for two earthquake scenarios. Findings are based on: (1) data describing the earthquake ground shaking and microzonation effects; (2) an inventory of buildings by value, floor area, replacement value, occupancy and age; (3) damage ratios defining the performance of buildings as a function of earthquake intensity; (4) daytime and night-time population distribution data and (5) casualty functions defining casualty risk as a function of building damage. A GIS serves as a platform for collecting, storing and analyzing the original and the derived data. It also allows for easy display of input and output data, providing a critical functionality for communication of outcomes. The results of this study suggest that economic losses due to building damage in the Christchurch CBD and Mount Pleasant will possibly be in the order of $5.6 and $35.3 million in a magnitude 8.0 Alpine fault earthquake and a magnitude 7.0 Ashley fault earthquake respectively. Damage to non-residential buildings constitutes the vast majority of the economic loss. Casualty numbers are expected to be between 0 and 10.
A photograph of the entrance to 270 St Asaph Street. A red sticker on the door indicates that the building is unsafe to enter.
A photograph of the earthquake damage to the Mona Vale Gatehouse. Wire fencing and tape has been placed around the building as a cordon.
A photograph of an archway, removed from above a window of the Cranmer Centre and placed on a pallet in front of the building.
A photograph of earthquake damage to the Cranmer Centre. A crane in the foreground is lifting two men on a platform up the building.
A photograph of a entrance of McLean's Mansion on Manchester Street. The red cordon tape indicates that the building is unsafe to enter.
Shaking table testing of a full-scale three storey resilient and reparable complete composite steel framed building system is being conducted. The building incorporates a number of interchangeable seismic resisting systems of New Zealand and Chinese origin. The building has a steel frame and cold formed steel-concrete composite deck. Energy is dissipated by means of friction connections. These connections are arranged in a number of structural configurations. Typical building non-skeletal elements (NSEs) are also included. Testing is performed on the Jiading Campus shaking table at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. This RObust BUilding SysTem (ROBUST) project is a collaborative China-New Zealand project sponsored by the International Joint Research Laboratory of Earthquake Engineering (ILEE), Tongji University, and a number of agencies and universities within New Zealand including the BRANZ, Comflor, Earthquake Commission, HERA, QuakeCoRE, QuakeCentre, University of Auckland, and the University of Canterbury. This paper provides a general overview of the project describing a number of issues encountered in the planning of this programme including issues related to international collaboration, the test plan, and technical issues.
Timber Mill being condemed.
A red sticker on the door of a damaged building in North New Brighton. The photographer comments, "A year after the earthquake in Christchurch a lot of buildings outside of the CBD are covered in cracks and beyond repair. These will slowly be demolished, but until then the buildings will be protected by a movable barrier and a red sticker".
Description: Observations of RC building performance in recent earthquakes with a special focus on the devastating events in Christchurch, New Zealand. These events have highlighted the complexity of post-earthquake decisions for damaged buildings and the impacts on communities. The presentation will reflect on factors influencing demolition decisions and emerging challenges for the earthquake engineering community. http://atc-sei.org/
An entry from Roz Johnson's blog for 22 May 2012 entitled, "Giving New Life".
Detail of a light fitting outside the former Ozone Hotel in North New Brighton. The photographer comments, "The broken light fitting is on the Ozone Hotel, which is red stickered after the 22 February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch. They will need to fix the building before this light gets a new bulb. The distinct blue colour seen is what made the Ozone stand out on Marine Parade".
Christchurch earthquake events have raised questions on the adequacy of performance-based provisions in the current national building code. At present, in the building code the performance objectives are expressed in terms of safety and health criteria that could affect building occupants. In general, under the high intensity Christchurch events, buildings performed well in terms of life-safety (with a few exceptions) and it proved that the design practices adopted for those buildings could meet the performance objectives set by the building code. However, the damage incurred in those buildings resulted in unacceptably high economic loss. It is timely and necessary to revisit the objectives towards building performance in the building code and to include provisions for reducing economic implications in addition to the current requirements. Based on the observed performance of some buildings, a few specific issues in the current design practices that could have contributed to extensive damage have been identified and recommended for further research leading towards improved performance of structures. In particular, efforts towards innovative design/construction solutions with low-damage concepts are encouraged. New Zealand has been one of the leading countries in developing many innovative technologies. However, such technically advanced research findings usually face challenges towards implementation. Some of the reasons include: (i) lack of policy requirements; (iii) absence of demonstrated performance of new innovations to convince stakeholders; and (iv) non-existence of design guidelines. Such barriers significantly affect implementation of low damage construction and possible strategies to overcome those issues are discussed in this paper.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Back of collapsed PGG building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Back of collapsed PGG building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Back of collapsed PGG building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Back of collapsed PGG building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Outside the PGG-Wrightson building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Back of collapsed PGG building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Press staff evacuate the building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Back of collapsed PGG building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Back of collapsed PGG building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Demolition progress of the Manchester Courts building which was severely damaged after the September earthquake".