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March 3, 2011 9:16am by David Farrar

2011 Christchurch Earthquake Day X

Death toll now 160.

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Pete George

After a lull yesterday it looks like a regularly disturbed night of aftershocks. Must be hard enduring that.
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March 3, 2011 9:31am
Inventory2

This is both heart-breaking and heart-warming, especially for those of us who are fathers…

http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2011/03/from-fathers-heart.html
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March 3, 2011 9:35am
XChequer

Is it day 10 already? Crap.

Like you and Inventory 2, David, I’ve had enough of the Standard too. My 2c worth here:

http://thenzhomeoffice.blogspot.com/2011/03/trotter-apologises-for-left.html
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March 3, 2011 9:58am
Megatron

Christchurch is very fortunate to have Bob Parker as mayor.
I don’t think Len Brown would be as effective in this situation. Hopefully he will never be tested.
My thoughts are with the people of Christchurch for what they have been through and continue to go through.
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March 3, 2011 10:03am
slightlyrighty

Megatron.

One wonders what Jim Anderton would have been like if the polls had been different last year. I would think there would be a lot more bitching at central government.
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March 3, 2011 10:21am
East Wellington Superhero

A friend has a senior role at prominent NZ engineering consultancy firm. He said that basically most of the buildings in the CHCH CBD were damaged when the ground lifted up, lifting the buildings vertically, and then moved down, dropping the buildings.
The result being that all these buildings look ok from the outside but up close have all this compression damage in their piles/columns.
Sounds like the comment “2/3 of the CBD is stuffed” may not be far off.
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March 3, 2011 10:25am
XChequer

Heh, Megatron

My thoughts were the same – if a wee bit lighter

http://thenzhomeoffice.blogspot.com/2011/03/with-greatest-respect-to-auckland.html
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March 3, 2011 10:39am
East Wellington Superhero

Another workmate has an in-law who used to be head of CHCH roading. They said that they often struggled to use their approx $30m capex budget each year because they simply couldn’t get access to materials, labour and professional advice. This will be an interesting challenge.
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March 3, 2011 10:42am
East Wellington Superhero

Am reminded of JFK’s “Moon Speech”.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Particularly “because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”. This is what I hope will come out of the earthquake – that CHCH, and NZ, gains some strength and shines.
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March 3, 2011 10:45am
Murray

… and will make us feel better while diverting our attention from the fact that Veit Nam isn’t going all that well and we may have to increase the number of advisors in country…

And he did specify to the moon and BACK. Some of the air force plans included a one way mission but he didn’t think that would be good for national spirits.
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March 3, 2011 10:49am
Lindsay Addie

East Wellington Superhero,

I think the kinds of figures your friends are talking about in regards to the damage in the CBD will be close to correct. Parker is really the only one playing down the damage, though I notice Key and some the business leaders here aren’t.
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March 3, 2011 11:37am
mavxp

basically the CBD was walloped with a seismic load much much greater than the code specifies for design.

The difference is that modern buildings are designed to deform in a way that absorbs energy in the right places – but remain upright (“strong column weak beam” philosophy). Old (pre 1970s) buildings only resist up to the design level then break wherever – usually columns leading to a collapse (pancake of PGC and CTV buildings for example). Older masonry structures are brittle and once the mortar breaks after a cycle or two of shaking the walls fall out and roof comes in.

We need to expect that the old buildings are largely collapsed or seriously damaged. Many “new” structures will even be seriously damaged – even though they did their job as designed and did not collapse, they may need to be replaced. Insurance will cover this, so don’t fret about cost. The big loss is business disruption – we need to be very smart how to manage the interim – the next 3-5 years, which will be critical.

It will take many years to rebuild and replace what was there. But when it does it will be much better than before – provided we don’t cheap-out and build boring concrete boxes everywhere. We need some decent architectural design, green technologies (ground source heating etc). The rebuild presents a huge opportunity for us – we should collectively grab it with both hands and develop a world class city for the new millennium.

Don’t give up in the face of the challenge. Take a deep breath, put your thinking cap on, and apply some muscle to this project. .

my 2c.
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March 3, 2011 3:53pm
pq

gosh dudes, thanks,l
anyone from Christchurch may write here,
all else banned you write drivel
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March 3, 2011 6:59pm
reid

mav you from ChCh cause I thought what you said was pretty swell, notwithstanding.

You’re absolutely correct, this is a massive opportunity which could easily be blown by people focused on getting it done rather than getting the vision.

Very good point.
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March 3, 2011 7:34pm
Lindsay Addie

Before we get too wrapped up in the big bright future talk and all this vision stuff like the pollies and some here are giving us there are the short term economic realities. We have to somehow get the local economy going which means getting as many as possible out of the 50,000 people who used to work in the CBD back to work somehow no matter what the short term solution is. That includes both business owners and their staff. Many people including myself have a very uncertain future financially. I do have options because I’m well qualified in my field but many don’t have the same options through no fault of their own.

There are deep seated short term issues that are major and they have to be addressed. And fixing them will not be achieved by having some lofty discussion about how wonderful the city will be in 10 -15 years time. It ain’t some quaint town planning exercise, that can come later.
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March 3, 2011 9:17pm
Viking2

Hey lets face reality, most of those 50k were paper shufflers anyway. Did any of them produce stuff for export sale? So do we need all that office space and space for tat shops? oh and coffee shops for lawyers.
Turn the lot into a park and use up some of the mt space in other towns. Decentralize is the word.
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March 3, 2011 9:30pm
Lindsay Addie

Viking2

“Hey lets face reality, most of those 50k were paper shufflers anyway”.

Seeing you have such infinite knowledge and wisdom perhaps you could reveal where you get such information from?

Sounds like half-assed nonsense to me. Do you want the dole numbers to blow out?
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March 3, 2011 9:41pm
reid

You’re quite right Lindsay. In my previous post my intention was to simply add to yet another perspective on this whole thing but you’re quite right it’s the immediate present that’s the required focus.

On that, I thought this story interesting on the big consulting firms keeping working over the quake.

I have to say I found the tone of it more like a press release designed to impress upon us the dedication of their firms to their clients, than a news report about the Christchurch earthquake.
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March 3, 2011 9:49pm
Lindsay Addie

Reid, that is an interesting story you mentioned

It’s obviously critical that the economy here gets going in some way quickly otherwise the drain on the taxpayer is going to be enormous and could drag the national economy down with it. Also the job market is going to change drastically and possibly become distorted for example the building and construction sectors will need many workers hopefully soon but my expertise which is IT probably not so much in the short term but in the medium to longer term skills will in IT infrastructure will be at a premium.

One of the big killers here could be the loss of tourism revenue which includes the large number of business conferences that have been held here. Btw many of them stay at places like the Hotel Grand Chancellor. There are numerous other large hotel in the CBD so this is major issue as many of our biggest hotels are not going to be open for months. The other big issue is the retailers in the CBD. These guys have had it tough before the quake showed up last week. Some will not survive.
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March 3, 2011 10:02pm
reid

Lindsay on top of that is the massively reduced spending in the Wgtn CBD which is almost all govt which will definitely come which means that market will be tough as well.

That leaves Auckland or Australia for people like yourself with a highly mobile skill-set.
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March 3, 2011 10:40pm

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