Living in post-earthquake Christchurch

My experiences returning to Christchurch after three major earthquakes.

I've been living in Christchurch for just over a month now having taken up a temporary job with the Earthquake Commission, the organisation that insures most private homes in New Zealand against natural disasters.

It's a diverse group of people working there. From young graduates to middle aged mothers. Hundreds and hundreds of us. Everybody at EQC realises the task of rebuilding Christchurch is a big one and they also know the job is temporary (as in a few months). So we get on with it.

It's kind of strange that my weekly pay cheque is thanks to New Zealand's worst ever natural disaster.

Christchurch is mind bogglingly different since I last lived here in 2009. While not my home city, I did live here for two years and during my childhood I came up for nearly every school holiday to see my grandparents. I know it well and it holds many great memories for me.

One of the quake victims

I guess no one expects a place they live in to be destroyed by shock event. One becomes accustomed to seeing natural disasters on the news. You can foolishly assume those things won't happen to you.

I was in Thailand for the September quake, Belgium for the Feb one and Indonesia for the June event. While in Belgium I was suddenly seeing my old home on TV. A massive earthquake had destroyed a place I had lived! I went through initial panick at the thought my friends and relatives had been hurt. Once I knew they were safe I was just sad to hear of all the victims and widespread destruction.

 It could have been worse. It's not like Christchurch was hit by an atomic bomb or a tsunami. It was pretty awful.. A lot of tragic stories, 181 deaths, many injuries and stress and a city forever changed. On the bright side, parts of the city remain in good nick

In front of the Cathedral 2009

I was lucky not to have been here for any of the major shakes. A lot of people were traumatised by the experience, particularly those in buildings that partially or fully collapsed. I have experienced a few aftershocks but because it was my first time ever feeling a house shake I started laughing.

A lot of Christchurch residents find themselves in tricky situations. Some have lost their businesses, home and worst of all loved ones. Some people want to leave but aren't able to sell their properties until the insurance has been settled. There aren't exactly a flood of people queuing up to move here either.

When I last lived here I doing journalism school at University. I had an active social life and enjoyed visiting bars in the downtown area.

Christchurch is known as the garden city. It's quite leafy, flat, had a nice inner city, trams, heritage buildings and is the second most populated city in New Zealand with around 350,000 people. It had nice beaches and beautiful areas like Lyttelton and Sumner.

There was Cathedral Square and many good pubs, restaurants and cafes. Most of the aforementioned are gone now. Christchurch is a shell of it's former self. Thankfully my grandparents house where I spent a lot of my early years is still standing. Looking at it from the outside someone might not know it has a lot of damage but it's fallen off it's foundations, has large cracks inside and some of the doors can't close anymore. The bill for repairing this damage? Around $78,000. And that's considered low.

The main earthquakes in CHCH were September 4th, February 22nd and June 13th but there were many thousands of aftershocks. Now there is no inner city. A lot of the cities most famous tourist attractions were destroyed, famous buildings have been demolished and most houses in Christchurch sustained damage in one of the shakes. Hundreds of the buildings that were very damaged have not yet been demolished. So they sit - there empty, cracked and sad. Their only fate to be taken apart piece by piece.

Parts of the city are much the same as before the disaster and a foreign visitor might not instantly realise there had been a catastrophe.

The very bumpy roads, patches of bare space and even areas of uncleared rubble that you eventually see while exploring the city do give it away though. I visited my old university the other day and a field that I used to run on is now covered with temporary buildings in which lectures are held!

So there is not much to do here these days. For the next couple of years, Christchurch is going to struggle to attract tourists. Not only are a lot of the best tourist attractions gone but the infrastructure for accommodating and transporting foreign guests is much worse than before.

What has stuck out most for me in post-quake Christchurch is what a (excuse the horrendous pun) leveler natural disasters can be. No matter how technologically advanced humans may be, we are not able to control the unpredictability of nature.  We may steadily become better at predicting when and where natural disasters will occur but I don't believe we will ever be able to completely stop these disasters from happening. Disasters can be a reminder to humans that we are not completely in control of the land and planet.

The road to Sumner now lined with containers

Christchurch will never again be the city that I knew. Hopefully it will evolve into something equally great or better over the many years of rebuilding.