A photograph of members of the New Zealand USAR team examining the collapsed basement of a building in central Christchurch.
An offices in the Registry Buildings starting to be packed away so it can be moved to a new location.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Avonside Girls High School with the brightly painted new Library building in the background".
An offices in the Registry Buildings starting to be packed away so it can be moved to a new location.
An offices in the Registry Buildings starting to be packed away so it can be moved to a new location.
A worker inside a digger, building a new bridge over the Avon river from University Drive to the Recreation Centre.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A view of Cathedral Square from high up in the new Press Building".
An offices in the Registry Buildings starting to be packed away so it can be moved to a new location.
Following the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake a comprehensive damage survey of the unreinforced masonry (URM) building stock of Christchurch city, New Zealand was undertaken. Because of the large number of aftershocks associated with both the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and the earlier 4 September 2010 Darfield earthquake, and the close proximity of their epicentres to Christchurch city, this earthquake sequence presented a unique opportunity to assess the performance of URM buildings and the various strengthening methods used in New Zealand to increase the performance of these buildings in earthquakes. Because of the extent of data that was collected, a decision was made to initially focus exclusively on the earthquake performance of URM buildings located in the central business district (CBD) of Christchurch city. The main objectives of the data collection exercise were to document building characteristics and any seismic strengthening methods encountered, and correlate these attributes with observed earthquake damage. In total 370 URM buildings in the CBD were surveyed. Of the surveyed buildings, 62% of all URM buildings had received some form of earthquake strengthening and there was clear evidence that installed earthquake strengthening techniques in general had led to reduced damage levels. The procedure used to collect and process information associated with earthquake damage, general analysis and interpretation of the available survey data for the 370 URM buildings, the performance of earthquake strengthening techniques, and the influence of earthquake strengthening levels on observed damage are reported within. http://15ibmac.com/home/
The cost of building a home in New Zealand's main cities has risen by 20 per cent since the Canterbury earthquakes.
A blog post from US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, David Huebner, titled, "American Search and Rescue Team Gifts Large Cache of High-Tech Equipment to Kiwi Counterparts".
A cafe that was damaged severely in the earthquake. The front wall of the top storey has crumbled onto the street, crushing a car. Wire fencing and road cones have been used to create a cordon around the buildings.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. On top of the collapsed Press building".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Multi-story building collapsed in Cambridge Terrace".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Earthquake damage in central Christchurch after a 6.3 earthquake. Trapped workers in the Forsyth Barr building".
A map showing the locations of heritage buildings which are in areas marked for projects in the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Christchurch Earthquake. A helicopter lifts people off the rooftop of a building in the centre of Christchurch."
A photograph of street art on a building in Brighton Mall.
A photograph of street art on a building in Brighton Mall.
The families of the victims of the CTV building collapse in Christchurch have told an engineering disciplinary hearing they've been waiting 12 years for accountability. The building collapsed in the February 2011 earthquake killing 115 people. It was designed by Dr Alan Reay's firm - Reay was criticised by the Earthquake Royal Commission for handing sole responsibility of it to an inexperienced employee. Reay has tried to stop the disciplinary process going ahead but it got underway in Christchurch today. Reporter Anna Sargent spoke to Charlotte Cook.
The old Robertson's Bakery building, Victoria Street, Christchurch - back view
The old Robertson's Bakery building, Victoria Street, Christchurch - back view
A photograph of the earthquake damage to a building on Hereford Street. A column on the right side of the building has snapped and the side wall has pulled away from the building. USAR codes have been spray-painted on one of the windows on the bottom storey. In the foreground there is a police car.
A photograph of a detail in an archway, removed from above a window of the Cranmer Centre and placed on a pallet in front of the building.
A photograph of a detail in an archway, removed from above a window of the Cranmer Centre and placed on a pallet in front of the building.
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "New reconstruction where it is planned to add a new ground floor to this basement in Lichfield Street and then build the building".
Abstract This study provides a simplified methodology for pre-event data collection to support a faster and more accurate seismic loss estimation. Existing pre-event data collection frameworks are reviewed. Data gathered after the Canterbury earthquake sequences are analysed to evaluate the relative importance of different sources of building damage. Conclusions drawns are used to explore new approaches to conduct pre-event building assessment.
Unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings have repeatedly been shown to perform poorly in large magnitude earthquakes, with both New Zealand and Australia having a history of past earthquakes that have resulted in fatalities due to collapsed URM buildings. A comparison is presented here of the URM building stock and the seismic vulnerability of Christchurch and Adelaide in order to demonstrate the relevance to Australian cities of observations in Christchurch resulting from the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquake swarm. It is shown that the materials, architecture and hence earthquake strength of URM buildings in both countries is comparable and that Adelaide and other cities of Australia have seismic vulnerability sufficient to cause major damage to their URM buildings should a design level earthquake occur. Such an earthquake is expected to cause major building damage, and fatalities should be expected.
A video of an interview with Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Frank Delli Cicchi, the Grand Central Group Australian and New Zealand general manager, about the demolition of the Hotel Grand Chancellor. The Grand Chancellor is the tallest building in Christchurch, and was severely damaged during the 22 February 2011 earthquake. Fletcher Construction have been chosen to demolish the building.
A video of a tour through the Christchurch central city Red Zone in January 2011. The video includes footage of the Edmond's Band Rotunda on Cambridge Terrace, the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Kilmore Street, the Hotel Grand Chancellor, Manchester Street, the Mexican Cafe on Lichfield Street, the McKenzie & Willis Building, the Bus Exchange, the Octagon Live restaurant, the ChristChurch Cathedral, and many other buildings.