Christchurch, 5 years later

[Zkribbler]

Lately I've been fretting about the city of Christchurch, which was nearly destroyed by an earthquake. I hadn't heard anything about if for a long time.

Built mainly on fill, the shaking liquefied the ground and the result was that buildings sank, tilted, broke, collapsed, etc. At the time there was some talk of re-locating the entire city to some nearby firmer ground. It doesn't appear that this happened, but today an article appeared showing the city is recovering.

On February 22, 2011, the city of Christchurch, on New Zealand's South Island, experienced an earthquake that measured 6.3 on the Richter scale.

This was the most destructive in a series of earthquakes that began on September 4, 2010.

The shallow depth of the earthquake caused tremendous damage to downtown Christchurch and the surrounding area.

Since the earthquake, Christchurch (population 436,056), the largest city in the Canterbury Region, has sprung back to life as a travel destination.

The city's rebirth has been fueled by the US$26.5 billion Christchurch Rebuild movement, which the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority calls the largest economic undertaking in New Zealand's history.

From a horrific event, an incredible movement of another kind emerged.

Even before the rubble was cleaned and new buildings built, public art and other displays began springing up everywhere.

From sculptures and murals to gardens and giant games, the central city is more beautiful than ever.

According to the Christchurch and Canterbury government, the region's economy has grown 31% in the past 5 years.

Tourism booming

The world has taken notice.

Passenger arrivals at Christchurch Airport were up 16 percent increase in summer 2015, with growth predicted to top 20% in February 2016.

International visits were up 6% for 2015.

"The airport will service close to 6.4 million passengers [in 2015], up from 5.9 million [in 2014], the most passengers the airport has ever handled in a single year," according to a government website.

"There are more than 800 cafes and restaurants in the city, nearly as many as there were pre-quake. New businesses continue to open every month."

Welcome back, Christchurch!

 

[Birdjaguar]

Any before and after pictures?

 

[Zkribbler]

I've never seen any before pictures, and I don't wanna.

We're still rebuilding some churches here in the Philippine after our 7.2 earthquake a few years back. Destruction depresses me.

 

[Camikaze]

The players in the cricket test match being played in Christchurch currently wore black armbands today, and held a minute's silence. The city seems to be doing quite well - thankfully western countries have a greater capacity to recover from natural disasters than others. IIRC they had another minor earthquake last week around about Christchurch.

I sometimes wonder about the conventional wisdom of rebuilding. It often seems that after a natural disaster that has devastated an area, people take pride in rebuilding almost out of spite, or to win some moral victory. But sometimes it's a bad decision to rebuild in a place that is known to be prone to natural disasters. e.g. there were some floods in Brisbane a few years ago, where suburbs were built on extremely flood-prone ground. Insurance companies were forced to cover flood damage, even though they didn't really want to from an actuarial standpoint. That suggests to me that perhaps those homes shouldn't be built there.

 

[warpus]

I remember that earthquake, it happened 2 months or so after I spent some time exploring the city. Great to hear that they're doing so well!

 

[Nobody]

The news hear isnt as positive alot of people are still without a real house, insurance payouts. Big parts of the city are still empty. Someone just threw a bucket of brown lumpy sludge at the minister in charge of the rebulid today. (

 

[Zkribbler]

The news hear isnt as positive alot of people are still without a real house, insurance payouts. Big parts of the city are still empty. Someone just threw a bucket of brown lumpy sludge at the minister in charge of the rebulid today. (

Still no insurance payouts. I guess they're still checking to make sure there was an earthquake.