This photo is doing the rounds on Facebook, not sure of copyright status but obviously those responsible are credited., so I share it. This is our central city, Christchurch 20 months after one of the greatest ground velocity speed earthquakes ever recorded, though only a 6.3 on richter scale. All the empty spaces were once tightly packed with older brick buildings to three or four storeys that were catastrophically damaged, or higher modern buildings to about 15 storeys (23 in one case) that suffered sufficient injury, cracking or displacement of joints to sufficient extent they were uninsurable and have since been demolished. The two largest buildings at the top of the photo are to be demolished too. The brightly coloured roof tops belong to "Restart" a temporary shopping complex - made out of brightly coloured shipping containers and quite stylish looking. I put this in because overseas readership of this blog is now very high and it gives overseas readers (including kiwi ex-pats) a very good view of what a tough struggle the city faces to be viable, a struggle now being aggravated by a Government that seems to be pushing a very aggressive political agenda under the guise of aiding recovery.
FOOTNOTE (next day) - I have just been watching footage and reading of the New York super storm damage, an estimated cost to repair damage has been made of $50 billion US. Quite possibly that will rise but nonetheless it is food for thought on just how really huge the economic impact of the Christchurch earthquakes - with an eventual bill of somewhere between $20 and $30 billion shared between a national population of only $4 million!
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