Thursday 22nd December - Christchurch - Earthquake Recovery

 

(The Sandman had a performance in the theatre tonight).

Today we had a tour of the city highlights of Christchurch.

So, here we are in Christchurch the place of nearly total devastation to February 2011.

Above is a similar view just after the earthquake. Which I borrowed from the below website, 

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/february-2011-christchurch-earthquake

Its been interesting to see the slow rebuilding, but they have a long way to go. Our tour guide was rather positive, bur there still were a lot of vacant plots being used as carparks. Reminds me of the rebuilding of Berlin years after the wall came down, 

They haven't rebuilt any buildings over 6 stories and many of them have cross beam reinforcement. There was a lot of consultation with the public about the rebuilding and they are rebuilding in precincts. e.g. medical precinct, hospital and similar, Education precinct, university ans schools.

They haven't started any work on the Cathedral, just reinforced it so it wouldn't fall down any further. Because it is privately owned, by the Anglican Church, there has been some disputes on how to proceed to restore it so it is still wrapped up. Residents of Christchurch are paying an extra rate every year to cover the repairs to the Cathedral.

We now know a lot more than is good for us about liquefaction. A lot of the residential houses were damaged when the solid ground under them turned to liquid and then the houses were condemned.

Being the good Mental Health nurses that I am, I asked the tour guide about PTSD and support from the government for mental health. The reply was that it wasn't a big problem. Really!?

From Wikipedia 

Mental health

The Christchurch earthquake of 2011 had widespread mental health effects on the population.^{[271][272][273][274][275][276]} Research following the Christchurch earthquakes has shown that increasing exposure to the damage and trauma of a natural disaster is correlated with an increase in depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).^{[271][273][274][275]} Those with the most exposure suffer the most from mental health deficits, compared with those that are relatively unaffected.^{[271][273][274][275]} Increases in trauma exposure are related to increased dependence on alcohol and nicotine, as well as prescribed psychiatric medication.^[271][272] This information is important to consider when reacting to future earthquakes and other natural disasters. There is evidence that suggests that the mental health effects of natural disasters can be debilitating and detrimental to the community affected.^{[271][272][273][274][275][276][277]}

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake

 Anyway, the reason I'm waffling on and not uploading photos is that I didn't get a chance to take any in the city itself, on wrong side of the bus and we didn't get off.

But we did visit the gardens. They seem familiar, I wonder if we stopped there on my last visit to Christchurch in 1977?

 

And some ducks!

Then a visit to the rose garden.

Then back to the ship.

I think that's our cabin I've outlined in red.

Here I am looking at the view while downloading today's photos!

 

So we have circled back to the beginning of this post with tonight's entertainment 

which was the sand drawing.