Knocked Out Of The Skies
It has been almost five years from now and the pictures, videos and accounts to be found are ever so shocking, frightening and incredibly real and unreal at the same time to me.
Each time I am about to publish a new story, I go online and do a little research; read some articles, watch some clips. Usually I tend to pick out some amusing, witty subject. But as I knew about this week’s course topic, I went down another road. And this one turned out to become a totally new and different experience for me.
There are countless reports and footages of eyewitnesses on the horrors of the 4th of September 2010 and 22nd September 2011 in Christchurch. The so called Canterbury Earthquake hit New Zealand’s east cost with a moment magnitude of 7.1 and an intensity of X.
X — Extreme: Some well-built wooden structures destroyed; most masonry and frame structures destroyed with foundations. Rails bent. (GeoNet)
Some of the references, especially of the second quake, are so personal and so intimate that I strongly fear and suffer with the relating persons.
As you can imagine, the impacts of such a destroying force extend to decades, still many people are homeless today and Christchurch is being rebuilt with a lot of effort. In addition there were several aftershocks within the past few years, causing more damage or destroying the rebuilding work which had already been done.
Whilst having had a fun time writing my other blog entries, this one almost got me teary eyes. During the second big quake in 2011, there were 185 people killed and almost 6,000 injured.
I found this company, Mainmark, which is doing magnificent work, rebuilding edifices. They’re also preventing buildings from collapsing which are at risk, such as the Christchurch Art Gallery which could already be saved (watch here).
If you’re interested, get some more information or watch some more footages on the topic here:
