Posted by on 15 November 2012, 05:33 pm
Ali & I, along with our family and a few friends, were in Christchurch last weekend for our son's wedding and had a chance to look around a little. The inner city was quite an empty place - streets with lots of gaps where buildings used to be and now nothing - no rubble just nothing. It was sobering and grounding.
No TV images could convey what we saw first hand - you just don't get the overall picture on TV and we did not see all of the destruction. We are told there are suburbs where there are nothing but empty houses and liquifaction for all to see.
We also saw some of the fight back by the locals - Addington was quite a buzz and there were pockets of life on corners of the odd street - a great pub we found was "smash palace" a pub with scaffolding walls and inside the bar is in an old bus and caravan - a great effort in the circumstances and signs that Christchurch is fighting back.
Similarly in the city centre the businesses that are using containers as their buildings is really cool and there is a small heart starting to beat again in the central city - I hope they keep the containers when all is rebuilt just to show where the rebirth started. Whilst currently the city has decentralised and gone to the suburbs it should come back if they are allowed to rebuild the city - I dare say its the where and the how they are thinking about.
You may recall that our little community back here in Waihi Beach donated 10k to the Christchurch earthquake efforts in 2010 - 5k each to St Vincent De Paul and the Salvation Army hoping to make a little difference in some folks lives that may have fallen through the cracks and needed help.There are still folk who need help and it is obvious that the rebuild will take time - probably 5 - 10 years - something we should all never forget.
Click photo to enlarge:
