A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The diggers just keep on getting bigger and bigger it seems".
A digitally manipulated image of an excavator. The photographer comments, "This is a huge excavator in the Christchurch CBD. It is being used to clear away the enormous amount of rubble from the buildings being demolished. It seems that nearly all the big machinery from all other the world has been needed in the clean up of the earthquake damaged buildings and utilities".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Close up of the cranes working on the Clarendon Tower. Big Red behind is now the crane in Christchurch capable of lifting the largest load. The yellow crane is a tower crane which is still being assembled".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Clarendon Tower with its family of cranes, viewed from across the river on Cambridge Terrace".
A photograph captioned, "Lovely big weeds, they're pretty aren't they. Amongst all this".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Colombo Street".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "A worker clad in protective gear is dwarfed by the big trucks and diggers working on the demolition site of the building on the corner of Gloucester and Colombo Streets".
Damage to a house in Richmond. Part of a concrete patio has slumped, leaving large cracks. The photographer comments, "The concrete patio is broken into big slabs".
A photograph captioned, "I miss living here, right by the river. I'd been there for quite a long time, 12 years or so. I realize now I took it for granted a bit. I used to get a bit bored with having a big old house that was cold, difficult to clean, and perhaps hard to keep warm. But now, when I go back there, I miss living in a big house by the river with an open fire and a big lounge and everything. I had the park there on the other side of the river. And there was a little bridge down there where you could walk over to it. There was actually a circuit you could do, up to the New Brighton Bridge and back. Yeah, it was beautiful".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Looking across Kerrs Reach to big fissures in Locksley Avenue".
Damage to a house in Richmond. A large crack runs through a concrete patio. The photographer comments, "The concrete patio is broken into big slabs. Over the following week this subsided even further".
Photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "Gloucester Street - this big machine munches concrete rubble and reduces it to aggregate for hard fill on building sites".
Damage to a house in Richmond. Part of a concrete patio has slumped, leaving large cracks, and a gap has opened up between the house and the patio. The photographer comments, "The concrete patio is broken into big slabs".
A torn advertising poster on a wall on High Street. The photographer comments, "Fashion Quarterly Autumn 2011 poster looks very unglamorous and neglected after being off limits for over a year in the Christchurch earthquake red zone".
A big bake off is being planned in Auckland this weekend to raise funds for the people affected by the Christchurch earthquake. The sale is taking place at Queen Elizabeth Square, opposite Britomart on Monday from 10.30 to 12.30. All the funds raised will go to the Red Cross. The organiser Glenn Browne has had such a strong response he's had to close the doors of his business and concentrate on the event.
Senior Constable Bruce Lamb is the Christchurch police dog handler who narrowly survived being shot in the course of duty on 13 July 2010, his police dog, Gage, was killed. Then Bruce's house was red stickered following the Canterbury earthquake in September, condemned and to be demolished.
A photograph captioned by BeckerFraserPhotos, "The Octagon Live Restaurant, formerly Trinity Congregational Church, on the corner of Manchester and Worcester Street. This was further damaged in the 23 December 2011 earthquake when a big piece of the rose window fell out".
A photograph of a wall with street art on it. It says "Cons-o" in big orange letters and is decorated by red stars on each end.
A photograph of a wall with street art on it. It says "Cons-o" in big orange letters and is decorated by red stars on each end.
A digitally manipulated photograph of a letterbox lying on the ground in front of a red-stickered house. The photographer comments, "An abandoned red stickered house just outside the four avenues that surround Christchurch CBD. The letterbox came down when the wall it was attached to collapsed. The occupants would have had strict instructions to stay out as the property is too dangerous to enter in case there is another earthquake or big aftershock".
Cobwebs and graffiti in a shower block. The photographer comments, "This was the Soccer changing rooms in Bexley Park in Christchurch. They have now been made out of bounds due to the extensive damage to the big building. The spiders must have grown awfully big though".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Red Cross volunteers (from left) William McKenzie, Jayne McAllister, Amanda Evans, and Pete Evans back in Invercargill after spending time in Christchurch following the big earthquake".
A sign on a fence in Bexley reads "17 19 21. We are all home, smiling, staying positive, looking forward, A.J. included." The photographer comments, "These three neighbour families in the Bexley Christchurch red zone are all great friends. They are so fond of each other that they want to buy a big parcel of land and then build three homes next to each other".
A worker repairs a leaning power pole in Bexley. The photographer comments, "I was told that this electricity pole in Bexley always leans after every big earthquake. Maybe it might take more than a one man and one shovel to put 'straight'".
A damaged house perched on the edge of the cliffs above Sumner. The photographer comments, "This house has slowly gone over the edge since the big earthquake in Christchurch in February 2011. Subsequent earthquakes has caused the rock face to crumble more and more".
A PDF copy of four labels that were wrapped around rose stems for All Right's 'Outrageous Burst of All Right: Flower Bombing'. Each label reads, "When did you last show a little love? Whether it's a simple act of kindness or lending a helping hand, the little things we do can make a big difference.
A UN report warns today that the world is running out of time to make sure there is enough food, water and energy, The Government says residents forced to sell up and leave their earthquake-damaged houses in the red zones of Christchurch can't expect to be told when their former homes will be demolished. A big story in the current Atlantic Monthly concludes, after looking at many studies, that cellphone use isn't harmful to your brain.
A city’s planted trees, the great majority of which are in private gardens, play a fundamental role in shaping a city’s wild ecology, ecosystem functioning, and ecosystem services. However, studying tree diversity across a city’s many thousands of separate private gardens is logistically challenging. After the disastrous 2010–2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, over 7,000 homes were abandoned and a botanical survey of these gardens was contracted by the Government’s Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) prior to buildings being demolished. This unprecedented access to private gardens across the 443.9 hectares ‘Residential Red Zone’ area of eastern Christchurch is a unique opportunity to explore the composition of trees in private gardens across a large area of a New Zealand city. We analysed these survey data to describe the effects of housing age, socio-economics, human population density, and general soil quality, on tree abundance, species richness, and the proportion of indigenous and exotic species. We found that while most of the tree species were exotic, about half of the individual trees were local native species. There is an increasing realisation of the native tree species values among Christchurch citizens and gardens in more recent areas of housing had a higher proportion of smaller/younger native trees. However, the same sites had proportionately more exotic trees, by species and individuals, amongst their larger planted trees than older areas of housing. The majority of the species, and individuals, of the larger (≥10 cm DBH) trees planted in gardens still tend to be exotic species. In newer suburbs, gardens in wealthy areas had more native trees than gardens from poorer areas, while in older suburbs, poorer areas had more native big trees than wealthy areas. In combination, these describe, in detail unparalleled for at least in New Zealand, how the tree infrastructure of the city varies in space and time. This lays the groundwork for better understanding of how wildlife distribution and abundance, wild plant regeneration, and ecosystem services, are affected by the city’s trees.