Mohammed Alsane and Mansour Alhenaki, Saudi Arabian students who were just leaving the James Hight building when the September earthquake struck.
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority is now double checking all of its paperwork following fears earthquake rubble dumped in a Christchurch land fill could have been contaminated by asbestos.
A photograph of cracks to the wall of the earthquake-damaged Wheki Building at the University of Canterbury.
Leanne Curtis is a Canterbury Communities' Earthquake Recovery Network board member and Peter Townsend is the chief executive of the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce.
The man in charge of the construction of the Canterbury Television Building is continuing to refuse to give evidence at the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission
The Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission hearing into the collapse of the Canterbury Television Building has ended for the week after four days of compelling evidence.
The Labour Party wrapped up its Canterbury Recovery Package in Christchurch today, announcing it would appoint qualified locals to govern the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority.
Despite over a century of study, the relationship between lunar cycles and earthquakes remains controversial and difficult to quantitatively investigate. Perhaps as a consequence, major earthquakes around the globe are frequently followed by 'prediction' claims, using lunar cycles, that generate media furore and pressure scientists to provide resolute answers. The 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand were no exception; significant media attention was given to lunarderived earthquake predictions by non-scientists, even though the predictions were merely 'opinions' and were not based on any statistically robust temporal or causal relationships. This thesis provides a framework for studying lunisolar earthquake temporal relationships by developing replicable statistical methodology based on peer reviewed literature. Notable in the methodology is a high accuracy ephemeris, called ECLPSE, designed specifically by the author for use on earthquake catalogs, and a model for performing phase angle analysis. The statistical tests were carried out on two 'declustered' seismic catalogs, one containing the aftershocks from the Mw7.1 earthquake in Canterbury, and the other containing Australian seismicity from the past two decades. Australia is an intraplate setting far removed from active plate boundaries and Canterbury is proximal to a plate boundary, thus allowing for comparison based on tectonic regime and corresponding tectonic loading rate. No strong, conclusive, statistical correlations were found at any level of the earthquake catalogs, looking at large events, onshore events, offshore events, and the fault type of some events. This was concluded using Schuster's test of significance with α=5% and analysis of standard deviations. A few weak correlations, with p-5-10% of rejecting the null hypothesis, and anomalous standard deviations were found, but these are difficult to interpret. The results invalidate the statistical robustness of 'earthquake predictions' using lunisolar parameters in this instance. An ambitious researcher could improve on the quality of the results and on the range of parameters analyzed. The conclusions of the thesis raise more questions than answers, but the thesis provides an adaptable methodology that can be used to further investigation the problem.
Bunch of artificial fabric, plastic and wire purple and white flowers tied together with a piece of blue string and a white ribbon.
Plastic red and black toy branded as the Case IH Axial-Flow 9120. There is dirt in the harvester. One wheel missing.
A photograph of a member of SPCA helping a member of Massy University's Veterinary Emergency Response Team (VERT) to load medical supplies into their vehicles. VERT travelled to Christchurch after the 22 February 2011 earthquake in order to assist with caring for animals.
Businesses struggling after the Canterbury earthquake are vowing to keep up the pressure on the Government for more assistance.
Shirley Community Centre, Shirley Road, Christchurch. File reference: CCL-2012-05-10-Around-Shirley-May-2012 DSC_02867.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Shirley Community Centre, Shirley Road, Christchurch. File reference: CCL-2012-05-10-Around-Shirley-May-2012 DSC_02866.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Shirley Community Centre, Shirley Road, Christchurch. File reference: CCL-2012-05-10-Around-Shirley-May-2012 DSC_02862.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Shirley Community Centre, Shirley Road, Christchurch. File reference: CCL-2012-05-10-Around-Shirley-May-2012 DSC_02869.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Shirley Community Centre, Shirley Road, Christchurch. File reference: CCL-2012-05-10-Around-Shirley-May-2012 DSC_02863.JPG From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries.
Lectures resume at the University of Canterbury this morning after being cancelled for two weeks because of the earthquake.
After commemorating the anniversary of last year's deadly earthquake in Christchurch, many are now looking to the region's future.
The seismic performance and parameter identification of the base isolated Christchurch Women’s Hospital (CWH) building are investigated using the recorded seismic accelerations during the two large earthquakes in Christchurch. A four degrees of freedom shear model is applied to characterize the dynamic behaviour of the CWH building during these earthquakes. A modified Gauss-Newton method is employed to identify the equivalent stiffness and Rayleigh damping coefficients of the building. The identification method is first validated using a simulated example structure and finally applied to the CWH building using recorded measurements from the Mw 6.0 and Mw 5.8 Christchurch earthquakes on December 23, 2011. The estimated response and recorded response for both earthquakes are compared with the cross correlation coefficients and the mean absolute percentage errors reported. The results indicate that the dynamic behaviour of the superstructure and base isolator was essentially within elastic range and the proposed shear linear model is sufficient for the prediction of the structural response of the CWH Hospital during these events.
The 2010–2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence began with the 4 September 2010, Mw7.1 Darfield earthquake and includes up to ten events that induced liquefaction. Most notably, widespread liquefaction was induced by the Darfield and Mw6.2 Christchurch earthquakes. The combination of well-documented liquefaction response during multiple events, densely recorded ground motions for the events, and detailed subsurface characterization provides an unprecedented opportunity to add well-documented case histories to the liquefaction database. This paper presents and applies 50 high-quality cone penetration test (CPT) liquefaction case histories to evaluate three commonly used, deterministic, CPT-based simplified liquefaction evaluation procedures. While all the procedures predicted the majority of the cases correctly, the procedure proposed by Idriss and Boulanger (2008) results in the lowest error index for the case histories analyzed, thus indicating better predictions of the observed liquefaction response.
The University of Canterbury has put one-hundred-and-fifty jobs on the line as it tries to recover from the Christchurch earthquakes.
Karen Brown reports from Chch, where there seems to be no end in sight for the mental health problems caused by the earthquakes
The Canterbury earthquakes are unique in that the there have been a series of major earthquakes, each with their own subsequent aftershock pattern. These have extended from the first large earthquake in September 2010 to currently, at the time of writing, two years later. The last significant earthquake of over magnitude 5.0 on the Richter scale was in May on 2012, and the total number of aftershocks has exceeded 12,000. The consequences, in addition to the loss of life, significant injury and widespread damage, have been far reaching and long term, with detrimental effects and still uncertain effects for many. This provides unique challenges for individuals, communities, organisations and institutions within Canterbury. This document reviews research-based understandings of the concept of resilience. A conceptual model is developed which identifies a number of the factors that influence individual and household resilience. Guided by the model, a series of recommendations are developed for practices that will support individual and household resilience in Canterbury in the aftermath of the 2010-2011 earthquakes.
None
A photograph of the earthquake damage near the front door of the Canterbury Horse Bazaar on Lichfield Street.
A video recording of a lecture presented by Professor Rajesh Dhakal and Professor Andy Buchanan as part of the 2011 University of Canterbury Earthquake Lecture Series.
Text reads 'Did you put the cat out and lock and back door?'. Shows car parked in Christchurch City at night. Context: People have been sleeping in their cars due to housing shortage created by Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 (Stuff 29 March 2012) Quantity: 1 digital cartoon(s).
A photograph showing earthquake damage in a Dallington resident's home, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.
A photograph showing earthquake damage in a Dallington resident's home, following the series of earthquakes in Christchurch.