Christchurch residents recall trauma of quake and aftermath
CHRISTCHURCH: Residents of Christchurch are remembering a decade of trauma, 10 years on from the Canterbury earthquake which changed life as they knew it.
Today marks the anniversary of the deadly quake, which occurred at 12.51pm on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday.
With a shallow epicentre just 10km from Christchurch, the magnitude6.2 quake was devastating.
It killed 185 people, most of whom were crushed in the Canterbury Television Building in the heart of the city.
Thousands more were physically injured, hundreds seriously so.
The total cost in dollars will never be known; one estimate suggests damages in the realm of $40 billion.
Everyone in Christchurch on that day has a story, and many are heartbreaking.
Annie (surname not given), from the eastern suburb of Richmond, says she was thrown across the room in her workplace before squeezing under a chair for safety.
‘‘I turned my head up and as I looked up to the ceiling . . . [it] just split. I’m seeing all the wires and the pink batts. It went on for a long, long time,’’ she said.
‘‘We ran downstairs and went outside and right before our eyes, the whole park just erupted into pools of mud. This was the liquefaction coming up.’’
Engineers estimated the level of damage was a one in 2500year event.
The scale threw people into disbelief.
‘‘I was dazed. People were dazed,’’ Annie said, recalling her journey into the city on foot to find her schoolaged daughter.
‘‘It became really terrifying as everyone was going out and I was the only person going in.
‘‘A man said ’You can’t get in because buildings have collapsed and people are dead’.
‘‘I just burst into tears.
‘‘I just marched on. It was like you lost focus of anything other than what you were trying to do.’’
Annie found her daughter among school groups decamped in Hagley Park.
She is featured in an exhibition at Canterbury Museum.
Filmmakers conducted interviews with everyday Cantabrians in the weeks after the quake, creating the film 12:51.
In recent months, they have created a second film by reinterviewing those locals.
Annie’s suburb was so badly hit by the tremor, she was forced to move.
‘‘After [Richmond] was redzoned, I took the government’s offer,’’ she said.
‘‘There were so many losses that it shapes you. It’s been a journey . . . recovery from something like this is not an end date, is it?’’
Many others have shared their story with media this week.
Brian Shaw is still fighting his insurance company for damages to his damaged apartment ten years on — as he also grapples with terminal cancer.
Becky Gale had a baby 10 days after the earthquake killed her partner, Adam Fisher, one of 18 people to die in the Pyne Gould Guinness building.
With casualties from 20 countries the repercussions were truly global.
Christchurch remains in a state of disrepair and recovery.
Today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will lead tributes at a memorial service to remember the dead, and to reflect on the journey.