A photograph of a vacuum cleaner in the Diabetes Centre. A sign reading, "S.N.A.G. Sensitive new age guy!!!" has been hung from the vacuum cleaner's head.
A photograph of a vacuum cleaner in the Diabetes Centre. A sign reading, "S.N.A.G. Sensitive new age guy!!!" has been hung from the vacuum cleaner's head.
Workers use a large water-blasting pipe to clear blocked drains. The photographer comments, "The Australian company Barry Bros Turned up very late at night to clean out our street drains of liquefaction".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "A big day of moving out of the caravan up the drive of their house to a rental home, for earthquake-stricken Kaiapoi mum and children. Tyler Entwistle (13) carries out the vacuum".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "A big day of moving out of the caravan up the drive of their house to a rental home, for earthquake-stricken Kaiapoi mum and children. Tyler Entwistle (13) carries out the vacuum".
A worker uses a large water-blasting pipe to clear blocked drains. The photographer comments, "These guys worked really hard late at night to remove the liquefaction blocking our drains, but did not pre-warn people. Our elderly neighbour's toilet was drenched in water".
The former Earthquake Commission minister, Gerry Brownlee, is defending EQC over claims its assessors in Christchurch were not properly qualified. A growing number of homeowners in the city are discovering EQC assessors have completely missed quake damage including broken foundations costing hundreds of thousands to repair. That's been disastrous for people who've bought homes with hidden damage who are sometimes finding private insurers unwilling to cover the cost of putting right mistakes made by EQC. The company hired by EQC to carry out repairs was Fletcher Construction. Its chief executive at the time, Mark Binns, told Checkpoint that EQC probably hired unqualified people to assess quake damaged homes. Gerry Brownlee refused to be drawn on the comments from Mr Binns. But when asked by RNZ Christchurch reporter, Conan Young, if it was acceptable to have retired policemen, school principals and vacuum cleaner salesmen carrying out assessments for EQC, he admitted finding enough people to do the job was a challenge.